33. Chapter 33
It’s 1:30 in the morning when we get to Hook’s. Red’s where he’s supposed to be, leaning on his bike, arms crossed, attention on a couple of young girls smoking outside.
Red’s young, maybe 24 or 25, drives a badass 2023 Harley-Davidson CVO Road Glide, which his height and build dwarf. He’s an ex-con like me but did a shorter stretch in the pen. He’s pretty relaxed, less aggressive than the rest of us. A playfulness that most of the guys don’t recognize. It tends to surface when he’s supposed to be the muscle in the operation.
Trigger and Rocky get exasperated with him because they think he’s too aggressive with the snitches, but I know he’s messing with their heads. He gets this small smile on his lips when he’s playing dumb. He’s doing it for his own amusement, not at the expense of others.
The only time he gets truly agitated is when someone fucks with his vehicles. And he’s got a handful of them. All classics he’s restoring. They’re parked at the Jury-owned mechanic shop he manages. They’re good for business, attract attention and customers.
As we get off my bike, X spots my truck. “What’s it doing here?”
‘’I got Zero to run it over,” Red says. “Figure you’ll need it later if we find your missing friends.” He tosses the truck keys at me.
“Ex-friends,” she murmurs, still looking at the truck. “What’s Spot doing here?”
I look at the truck. Spot’s watching us through the window, his tongue lolling.
Red shrugs. “How the fuck would I know? Ask him.”
X walks up to the truck and yanks the door open, letting Spot out. She kneels, gives him a kiss and talks to him for a moment, then returns to my side as the dog follows her.
Her eyes crinkle at the corners. “He says he misses you.”
Jesus. This woman, the dog. This is going to be the rest of my life. I don’t know whether to weep or celebrate.
“Thanks for helping out,” I say to Red.
His attention flicks to X, whose eyes are sweeping him in a way that makes me feel like a caveman.
“This is X,” I say with a warning growl. “You’ve seen her at the clubhouse.”
“Ximina,” she corrects.
“Ximina,” he repeats as if committing it to memory. “I knew an Ximina.” He grins like he’s remembering good times.
“I have a twin,” X smirks. “I’m prettier, but she’s smarter.”
“Thought you looked familiar.”
“Enough,” I say, mostly because I want to punch Red. “The plan is to head to Runner’s Up and rifle it. You stand around looking like you aren’t a giant, while X and I break in.”
“Runner’s Up?” Red’s lip curls.
X pipes up. “Yeah. Miguel’s slogans were Need the runs? We put the R in Relax.”
“For real?” The smile that teases his lips shows he knows it’s not.
X raises her brows, which is almost like winking, which once again gets me curling my fists. Spot seems to sense the tension and trots up to Red, shoving his wet nose into his crotch.
He looks down, wraps his hand around Spot’s muzzle and gives him a little shove. “Keep your nose out of my business.” Then he looks up. “Why do you have a dog in the first place?”
I sigh. “Because we can’t shake the sonofabitch loose.”
Red laughs. “Well he ain’t ridin’ with me. I didn’t bring an extra helmet.”
“We’ll take the fucking truck,” I reply as I look at my watch. “It’s time to go. X knows the way. We’ll lead. You follow. Kill your lights when I kill mine.”
He stares at me blandly. “I read the manual when I got my colors. Let’s go.”
It takes us twenty minutes and I think we’ve lost Red, but when we pull up to Miguel’s business, he’s approaching on foot.
“Where’s the bike?” I ask.
“Chapter one in the manual. Don’t wake up the fuckin’ neighborhood with a bigass hog when you’re doin’ a B E.”
“Right,” I say, slightly embarrassed.
There’s police tape around the premises, but no cops in sight, so I duck under it, X following me. Somehow she’s managed to get Spot to stay in the truck.
“You stay out here and keep a look out,” I say to Red.
He looks at the sky and sighs. “Chapter two.”
X snickers and I elbow her.
It takes more than a couple of minutes to break into the office because my lock-picking skills are rusty. Inside, the office is a mess. Not sure if the police tossed it or it was the fuckers looking for the coke.
“That was where Miguel sat,” she says as she points to a desk. “That was Tommy’s.” She points to the second desk.
“Who the fuck is Tommy?”
She shrugs. “Miguel’s helper guy. Answered the phone, arranged the pick-ups and drop-offs. Made labels and coffee.”
“So just the two in the office?”
“Yeah. The couriers came and went.”
I nod. Makes sense. “What’s in the back?”
“A storeroom, kind of a staffroom, bathroom.” X puts her hands on her hips as she glances around.
“Keep your head down,” I whisper to her.
“I’m not Red,” she murmurs. “I don’t need instruction.” She kicks up papers strewn on the floor. “And the cops already searched the place. They don’t have a guard at the door. I think it’s safe to say they aren’t coming back.”
I grab her by the waist and turn her towards me, my hand wrapping her chin. “Don’t fuck with me, X. We’re doing this for you.”
Hurt grows in her eyes before I’ve finished the sentence. “Wow. Thanks for that.” She tries to jerk away from me but I tighten my hold on her.
“You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Because I’m a mind reader,” she says tartly. “Let’s get on with this.”
I let her go to put space between us. My dick is telling me to swat her ass, but that’s gonna have to wait.
We go through everything in the front, which is a pain in the ass because the place is full of useless shit like fake plants, a couple of plastic road runners, and an expresso machine.
“Maybe we should check the office.”
Jesus, save me from the woman. “There’s an office?”
“Yes,” she says already in motion towards the hall.
“You didn’t say there was an office. We should’ve searched it first.”
“Pfft. I like to be methodical. Start with the front and work my way back.” She gives me a teasing grin.
“Jesus,” I reply. As we step inside, I consider the mess. “Someone’s torn it apart just like out front.” I’m observant that way.
“Yeah,” X says as she drops to her knees and starts throwing papers and books around.
I watch her for a few moments, my boner appreciating her ass, which is as enticing in the dim light as it is in full daylight. Stand down, I tell it as I wander through the room, kicking shit around. There’s nothing fucking here. Why the hell would there be? “This is a waste of time,” I mutter.
X is behind the desk on her knees, searching through a drawer. Then she drops down out of sight.
“What the fuck are you doing?”.
X’s reply is muffled. “Checking something.” Then she pops her head up. “Got it.”
Got what?” I say as I take a small notebook from her hands.
“Miguel’s record of jobs. I’ve seen it. He gets a job, he records it here.”
“And hides the book?”
“I know. Weird huh?” She points under the desk. “You can hardly see the panel, but I caught him under here once. ‘Who are you doing?’ I said being my usual funny self.” She frowns, then adds. “Foreshadowing I guess.”
I lay the ledger on the desk and open it. “Was he born in the ’80s? Why not use a computer.”
“He did. But he also used the ledger. All very hush hush.”
I flick on the flashlight on my phone.
“Look back a few days, maybe a week before,” X whispers to me, her breath warming my forearm, almost making me forget why we’re here.
“Chapter Three,” I grunt as I flip the pages to the jobs logged the Friday before.
“I didn’t get the manual,” she replies as she crowds me. “Probably because Hangman doesn’t think girls can read.”
I grin as I run my finger down a column. “Girls can read?”
“Barely,” she says, then adds, “Why don’t we just take the ledger with us?”
“Plan to.”
Red interrupts. “Could you fucking get on with it?”
We both jump.
“What are you doing in here?” I say with irritation.
“Gotta piss.” He disappears into what I assume is the bathroom. The stream of urine is too loud for him to have closed the door behind him.
“Christ.” Maybe I’m wrong about his intelligence.
X doesn’t seem to notice. “All of these are jobs done by a Melanie Richards.” She’s tapping at the name as she goes down the list.
“So what?”
“First, Miguel likes to support the Latino community and so he only ever hired people with Mexican roots.”
“What a stand-up guy,” I sneer. “Doesn’t mean he didn’t make an exception.”
“Possible, but Melanie is a woman’s name and Miguel was a sexist asshole.”
I see where she’s going. “And the fucking idiot used the same initials as his own name.”
X quirks her eyebrows. “Miguel Ramos. I’m embarrassed to admit he was my boyfriend.”
I give her a small warning jab in the rib with my elbow. “Stop it with the boyfriend shit.”
“Ow!” she exclaims rubbing her side and grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Then she stabs at a row. “Here. Abbott, Beckett Crombie.”
Four days before the murder. Miguel/Melanie was the courier.
“ABC,” Red says over our shoulders.
X and I jump.
“How the fuck can you be so quiet dragging your big-ass body around?” I say irritably.
“Sneaking up on someone has nothing to do with anything else,” he replies like he’s Yoda.
“He’s right,” X agrees. “But getting back to the problem. This doesn’t really help us.”
“No, but Hangman might know.”
“Hangman?” X asks with skepticism.
The club is knee deep in contracts - mostly loans, but other shit too. “If not him, Coyote will track the company down.”
“Oh,” she says and then without a word, leaves the office.
“Are we done here?” Red asks as he watches X disappear down the hall towards the back.
“Yeah. Meet you back at the clubhouse.”
He leaves and I wait a minute or two, but X doesn’t reappear.
She’s not in the bathroom so I peek my head in a couple of doors. One is a meeting room, the other a storeroom.
X is in the latter on her knees rooting around.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting some office supplies for school,” she says as she sets a box of pens on top of three packages of copy paper.”
“You’re getting office supplies?” Once again the king of stupid questions.
“I’m getting office supplies,” she confirms.
I can’t decide if she’s a little psychopathic. “Don’t you feel like you’re robbing the coffin?”
She glances up, holding a package of highlighters in one hand and an empty scribbler in the other. “Why not? Miguel’s not coming back for them.”
She’s exasperating. “Let’s go before some good citizen calls the cops.”
She’s still on her knees as she shuffles over to me, pushing me out of the storeroom with her hands on my thighs, forcing me to walk backward until I hit up against the wall in the hall. “Stay there.” She cranes her head up at me.
“Why?” As if I didn’t know.
She runs her hands under my T-shirt, her fingers tracing my abs. “With a six-pack like yours, I could easily become a drunk.”
“Whoa,” I say as I grip her wrists. “What the fuck are you doing?” I’m pressed against the wall like I’m being sexually harassed.
“Revenge sex,” she replies as she pulls out of my grip and nimbly unbuttons my jeans.
I try to grab her hands again, but she evades me. “Red’s waiting for us,” I tell her, but my protest is tepid.
“It’ll be a quickie.”
“I don’t do quickies, X. Not with you.”
“I’ll change your mind. You got your watch? Time me.” She’s got the zipper down and is in the process of sliding my jeans over my ass.
“I’m not gonna fuckin’ time you.” I try to grab her hands again, but she evades me.
“Why not? You made me time you.” She has both hands on my dick and I suck in a breath as she squeezes tightly. No subtly to this girl. She takes a lick, then pulls as much of my boner into her mouth as she can get.
“Because it doesn’t work that way.”
“Double standard,” she mumbles around her mouthful.
She wins, I decide as she slides her tongue up and down the underside of my dick. I tangle my hands in her hair and shove her head towards my groin.
She tries to take me deep, then chokes and pulls back. “Gag reflex,” she explains as if I’ve never had a blow job before.
“You started this,” I tell her in a hoarse throat. “Don’t fucking think you’re gonna stop now.”
I hear the irritation in her voice as she jacks me with her hand. “I’m not a tease. I fully intend to finish this; it’s just I don’t have a ton of practice. Miguel?—
“For fuck’s sake!” I snarls as I shove my dick between her lips. “We are not going to fucking talk about your ex-boyfriends every time we have sex.”
She pops her lips off me. “I’m just saying.”
“Don’t fucking say,” I press her head towards my boner.
“Fine,” she says, but it’s muffled. Then her tongue goes to work as she hugs the root of my cock like it’s a tube of toothpaste and runs her tongue over the head.
She pulls back. “It’s like ice cream isn’t it?”
I shove my cock back into her mouth. “Suck,” I command as I grab her hair and yank it.
She pulls back. “Weird how it’s called a blow job.” Then she blows hot breath on my dick.
I jerk as a rush of lust hits me. “Do that again,” I choke.
She wiggles her tits against my thighs and blows again, this time like she’s the big bad wolf trying to blow down the brick house.
“Jesus,” I mutter as my knees go weak.
“Let’s not use his name in vain while I’m doing this.”
“You did when you came this afternoon.”
“Did I?” She sounds surprised.
Before I can shove her head towards my cock, she takes it her mouth again, this time sucking. A minute later as my balls start to tighten, she pops off of it. “How’s that?” she asks.
“Fuck,” I snarl. “Finish what you started.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t swallow. Gag reflex again. We need a tissue.”
I have this image of me grabbing her by the hair and shoving my cock down her throat forcing her to swallow, but I drop to my knees instead, yank her around by the arms, shove her face and shoulders to the floor. “You’ll fucking finish what you started.”
She’s struggling, trying to get out of my hold, albeit not all that hard. “Not that way. I like it slow and easy.”
“Right,” I reply through gritted teeth. I hold her down with a hand between her shoulder blades, the other wrapped in her hair. “My turn to show you how I like it, you little tease.” I swat her ass.
“Ow,” she says banging her hand against the floor like she’s tapping out.
I somehow manage to pull her jeans off her. The fucking panties I rip off. Then I sink into her up to the hilt. She’s small, but vicious as she swings her hand back and scratches my arm. “Goddamn!” she snarls followed by a giggle.
“Don’t use the lord’s name in vain,” I growl as I slam myself into her.
“It’s not fair you get to come and I don’t,” she grunts, her arms behind her gripping my wrists.
“It was gonna end that way anyway,” I say to her. “You started it with the blow job.”
“Yeah, but if we’re doing this, then it’s not fair.”
I lean on her back, my breath in her ear. “It’s fucking, baby. Not doing this. Not making love. This is pure fucking.”
“Okay. Fine. Whatever you say.”
I’m getting close and I think she has a point. “Touch yourself for fuck’s sake.”
“That doesn’t work.”
“Try it.”
Her hand snakes under belly and she starts rubbing. “Okay, maybe it’s working this one time,” she says, her breathing rapid. “Oh my God. A little harder, please.”
Fuck. Her words topple me. I slam into her a few more times, then come hard. I hear her intake of breath as her ass presses into me. Then she keens and her body goes taunt.
“Holy,” she whispers as I slump down on top of her.
She’s got that right.