Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
S triker…
“Hey, hey! What’s up, my dude?”
The greeting, more than the voice, tipped me off that I wasn’t speaking to anyone but Kash Kendrick of the Ocala chapter of the RBMC.
“Wish it was a social call, Kash—” I halted a moment and said, “Well, actually, for us, it kind of is. But all the same, this is club business and serious business at that.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked. “Gimme the 4-1-1.”
I filled him in on the situation in Ormond Beach and what the Bloody Scorpions were up to. He was quiet on the other end of the line.
“So basically, what do you say? Feel like coming up our way to party and maybe do a tap dance on some Scorpion’s face?”
“Dude, fuck yeah! You know I like a little violence with my beer. You guys have a master plan?”
“Renegade’s on the phone with Jameson, and Shadow’s calling up to Jacksonville. Man, you know we got a plan.”
Kash laughed.
“Dude, I’m sure Jameson is just going to love Renegade being in charge of this one,” Kash declared.
“Fuck your West Coast. Ain’t no party like an East Coast party on this one,” I told him.
He laughed again and said, “Lemme get with The Bishop and see if we can’t get the rest of the boys on board.”
“Might want to leave the ol’ ladies out of this ride,” I told him.
“Aw, bet, bet. They can be as fuckin’ pissed off as they wanna get, but this is for sure not a ride for them.”
“No. No, it is not,” I affirmed.
“Hit me back in about fifteen minutes.”
“Copy that. Talk soon,” I said.
“Cool, cool,” he said.
I checked the clock and sat back in my chair, staring at the burner on my desk and waiting the allotted fifteen minutes. It rang after barely ten. I picked up.
“Dude!” Kash called on the other end of the line.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Fuckin’ count us in,” he said. “What were you guys thinkin’? Tonight?”
“Tonight,” I affirmed. “We wanna be fashionably late, add a little insult to injury by whooping their asses when they think they got the high ground. Y’all have been to the Iron Horse, right? You know how it’s set up?”
“Yeah, yeah!” Kash affirmed. “We got you. Let’s fuck some shit up! Text you when we roll out, dude.”
“Keep the shiny side up, brother.”
“And the dirty side down,” Kash quipped, and the line went dead.
Shadow came out of his office, and I gave him a thumbs-up. He threw me some chin and called out, “Jacksonville is mobilizing.”
Renegade came out of his office, and I asked, “How’d it go?”
“The usual,” Renegade said. “Jameson told me to do it his way. I asked him if I’d ever let his ass down before, and he told me to fuck off and get it done and don’t fuck it up.” Renegade gave a shrug.
Shadow and I laughed.
Renegade and Jameson had a… contentious relationship sometimes.
Jameson wasn’t exactly known to be the trusting sort, but if there was any president of any chapter of this fuckin’ club that was trustworthy – it was fucking Renegade.
Ren had taken up for Jameson under Rancid’s rule as far as he could without getting out bad under that fuckstick’s megalomaniac charge.
Of course, Renegade always did shit his own way and in his own time, and damn if he didn’t have a knack for coming up roses. It tended to gripe Jameson’s ass, who was particular and liked shit done his way or the highway. It caused Ren and Jameson to lock horns on more than one occasion, but Jameson had to grudgingly admit Renegade had it going on. Slowly but surely, Jameson’d learned to loosen the reins.
Funny thing was, the more he unclenched his fist around Renegade, the better Renegade brought the kind of results and then some to lay at our king’s feet. Now, Jameson begrudgingly let Renegade have free rein, and yeah – that’s how Renegade had gotten his name. It was more than fitting and a badass honorific.
When Jameson had looked at the map of North Florida for a strategic place to fortify our club’s holdings, Renegade, who was already a local for St. Augustine, had been Jameson’s choice to anoint as president of the St. Augustine chapter.
The rest, as they say, was history.
Now it was just a bunch of hurry-up-and-fucking-wait for Jacksonville and Ocala to show up. Since our chapter was hosting this run, I had my work cut out for me to put it together and lay out the ride’s master plan. I got on Google Maps and busted out the graph paper to put down the formations.
Truth be told, I was jazzed. It sure beat the fuck out of the boredom and staring out the alcoves wishing something would happen.
Of course, the phrase be careful what you wish for certainly entered the back of my mind while I worked.