Chapter 12
CHAPTER
TWELVE
WES
At our old house, I’d gone through the bags of my stuff that my mother had put aside for me. Stuffed animals, board games, gadgets, decks of cards, Legos, and baseball caps all hurtled me down memory lane.
Sticking out of a crate were my old ice skates from my brief stint in ice hockey. Next to that crate stood a bulging shopping bag filled with high school and college logo sweatshirts and sweatpants.
For years, I’d pointed out to Mom that she wasn’t doing much to get on with a new path in life, for still hanging onto this house even though she was with Ronny. He’d never really moved in, either. Something inside her didn’t want to give it up. But she’d finally done it, cutting those old attachments that no longer served her. I was proud of her.
Now this room was ready to be filled by another kid. Or, who knows, maybe a cranky mother-in-law. This room where I’d danced around to great music blaring from my stereo. Played my video games. Plastered so many posters on the wall of my favorite dirt bike and Moto champions, rock bands and movie heroes.
My glance went to my old twin bed that I’d often used as a trampoline as a kid. First time I fooled around with a girl was on that bed. My desk where I’d studied for so many tests, distracted myself with doodling, constructed a model train that won me an award, put together so many projects for school, and sketched when I was feeling frustrated, moody.
I scratched at that old Harley-Davidson sticker on the bottom corner of the mirror over the dresser, but it was still as stubborn as ever. My gaze settled on my reflection, the stuffed bags and crates in the background. Nothing I wanted to save. Nothing I was nostalgic about. I was done here.
I went through the dresser drawers one last time. Empty. My desk drawers. I pulled out the right side. Empty. Pulled out the left, and a rolling sound rattled across the wood. A Hot Wheels. “Fuckkk.” Not any Hot Wheels, but one of my top faves, the red Ferrari F50 Spider that had come out before I was born.
My father used to buy them for me all the time, starting from when I was a toddler. Instead of candy or fast food as a treat, he’d bring me a new Hot Wheels, any time and for no reason at all. Or as a present from a run. When I was little, I used to think that a Hot Wheels from anywhere outside of South Dakota was the coolest thing. As if they were different. I had a massive collection.
That’s what was missing. My Hot Wheels. My gaze shot to my closet. The Man Stash.
In the back of my closet was a hiding place my father had built when I was maybe ten years old. Mom had been out of town at the time. It had been mine and Dad’s secret. He had a metal lockbox in there, and I had my older and precious Hot Wheels carefully layered in a big shoe box. Dad had said that was our special place where they’d be safe, where no one knew about them except for him and me.
When I was thirteen, I’d gotten my hands on a porn magazine and I’d stashed it in there until I’d gotten bored with it and gave it to my friend, Zac. I didn’t think I’d opened the stash since.
My closet was unusually deep and was L shaped which was where the secret panel was. Now there were no coats and piles of shoes and boots or stacked shoe boxes in my way, making me feel like I was in an endless dark forest. Now the slight indentation in the wall was visible to me.
My fingers rounded over the long seam past the corner of the L, then the bump. I shoved, shoved again, and it finally gave way.
Using my cell phone’s flashlight, I trained it on the hollow in the wall. There it was, the cherry red cardboard box with my Hot Wheels collection inside. My treasure chest. Taking it out, I set it on the floor and shined my phone light in the small dark space again. A big metal box was visible. Dad’s lockbox.
I took it out. Heavy and still locked. Dad always carried a huge mess of keys on him. For the house, his vehicles and bikes, the club. Everything was on there. And I knew where it was.
I darted down the stairs to the entry way of the house. Willy, the eldest One-Eyed Jack, was a carpenter, and years ago he’d made this wood slab console table as a gift for my parents’ anniversary. Glancing down the hall to the kitchen, where my mother was cleaning up for the night, I gently pulled on the wrought iron handle of the one large drawer where we kept pens, measuring tapes, keys, new batteries, lighters, rolling papers.
“Honey, everything okay?” Mom called out from the kitchen. “You need help?”
“Nope. All good.” I shuffled through the full, deep drawer. Finally, there it was. The red and silver J keyring along with Dad’s favorite skull and Harley logo key rings attached to it. Sure, it was a ton of keys, but odds were good the lockbox key was one of them.
Back in my room, I tried every key that might fit, and finally… click . I blew out a breath and opened the box. But there was no gun, or knife like I’d expected. Eight spiral notebooks, and underneath them, aluminum foil wrapped packages which could only be one thing. I ripped one open. Cash.
Hundreds, fifties, twenties stacked in neat bundles. A lot of bundles. I knew my parents used to keep cash in the house in an old ugly lamp in the living room. Sitting on the floor, I leafed through the notebooks, the oldest dated over twenty years ago.
Each line was filled on each page. Dollar amounts. A tally of guns, rifles, automatic weapons, and chemicals. Where they’d been acquired, for how much, who was buying, the prices. Dates of transport. Names of contacts on the routes. Biker road names I didn’t recognize. All in Dad’s tight, clean handwriting.
I went through the other notebooks. More of the same through the years.
I chewed on my lip. Dad was old school, had never been very tech-minded, so using a spreadsheet or keeping files on a USB stick had never been his bag. Years ago, when Dready had upgraded all the systems at the club, Dad had grumbled endlessly about the expense as well as now having to keep track of passwords and codes.
In the oldest notebooks, the one name featured over and over again was Zed. One of the last presidents of the Broken Blades before their club had been ripped apart by the Flames and the feds.
The other night at Dead Ringers, Mom had mentioned that she and Dad hung out with Zed and his old lady a lot. And Lindy had referred to him as “Uncle Zed,” so he and Pick must have been tight.
Had Dad and the Blades been involved in some secret underground business for years? Why would he keep these notebooks here?
So Mom wouldn’t find them.
So the Jacks wouldn’t find them.
So if anything ever happened to him, only his son would know. He’d depended on his son taking the cash, destroying the evidence, and keeping his secret.
My chest caved. He’d made me his co-conspirator.
“Don’t tell your mom. This is a men’s only vault, okay, Flash? It’ll be our man stash. Just you and me. Put whatever you want in here. Stuff that’s sacred to you.”
“Sacred?” I’d repeated the exotic word.
“Something so special you want to keep it safe, keep it just for you.”
Sacred. Secret. Special. Just for me…my Hot Wheels!
I’d only nodded my head, hanging on his every word, and done like he said.
I skimmed through each notebook, my insides tightening. Some gigs were over a month apart, others several months plus, others over a year in between. Business was inconsistent but steady. After the fifth notebook, Zed’s name wasn’t listed, but other names were. Names I didn’t recognize.
I went through the last notebook. The final entry was dated a week before Dad’s murder. A cold prickle raced over my neck. Death was the only thing that could stop Dad, and stop him it did.
I tucked the notebooks and the cash back in the lockbox, and the lockbox in a thick black garbage bag. I threw in some CDs and the box of Hot Wheels on top and tied the bag. I grabbed my old Snoopy, who was staring at me from the pile of sweatshirts, and shoved him on top of the bag so I’d remember to take it to my apartment tonight and not confuse it with the other bags for donation. I headed for the kitchen.
“How’s it going up there?” Mom closed the dishwasher.
I grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge. “I think I’m done.”
“Terrific. Find anything interesting?”
“Snoopy, remember him?”
“Of course I do. You loved him so much when you were little, always walking around the house holding him. Even when you ate at your highchair, he had to be with you. I’ve washed him so many times, and yet he survived intact.”
“He sure did.” I sat down at the table. “Were there any other stashes in the house other than the lamp in the living room?”
“That was it. Sometimes I’d keep a Tupperware in the freezer, but haven’t done that in a long, long time.” She let out a short laugh as she straightened her kitchen towels in a drawer.
Nope, she still didn’t know.
I wiped at my mouth. “I wanted to ask you, the other night at Dead Ringers you and Lindy were talking about a Zed and an Angel that you and Dad used to hang out with?”
Her face brightened. “Zed was the prez of the Broken Blades, and Angel was his old lady. The four of us were good friends. We used to party together a lot. It was fun to have that sort of friendship between clubs. We’d organize runs together, meet up at bars. Go to their clubhouse, and they’d come here. We had a lot of fun…while it lasted.”
“Why did it end?”
“Poor ol’ Zed had a massive heart attack out of the blue and died. Then his VP, that fuckwad Notch, became president and everything changed. He didn’t like a lot of Zed’s policies, plus he had a stick up his ass with the Jacks. That was the end of the good vibes and the good times between our clubs. It got so bad that all lines of communication and good faith broke off. Your dad was really upset about it.”
“So he and Zed had been tight?”
“They were. Why?”
“Kinda cool, all this history.” I drained my beer bottle. “You and Dad knew Lindy’s parents back then?”
Mom filled a glass with water and joined me at the table. “We knew them, but we didn’t hang out with them much. Something about Lindy reminds me of her mom.”
“Oh yeah?” I’d met Lindy’s mother once. She’d caught us fooling around in their backyard late one night but didn’t raise a fuss. Luckily, Pick had been out of town at the time or I might not have made it out of that backyard alive.
Mom continued, “Emmy had this sweet country girl feel about her, which had made an impression on me—obviously, because I still remember. Lindy has that too—a genuine smile and eyes that light up and sparkle when she’s listening to you. Shame she died the way she did.”
“She died?” My chest tightened. “When? How?”
“It was your freshman year at college. Around Christmas. Lenore told me she got diagnosed with some kind of cancer, and within a couple months or so, she was gone. Can you imagine?”
“She didn’t go to a doctor or get treatment?—”
“You think they had that kind of health insurance?” Her lips twisted. “I don’t know the details. All I know is she went real quick, and it was a shock to everybody over there. Pick was a mess and Lindy…awful. She’s an only child like you. All that grief and loss when a girl needs her mom the most.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lenore had told me Lindy had just turned sixteen.”
“Right…” My thumbnail scratched at the wet label on the beer bottle.
“That’s when you start fighting your parents for independence, but down deep, a girl needs her mom to deal with boy shit—plain ol’ life shit—to make the right decisions for herself, because suddenly, they’re so many to make. Lindy was in that wild, fucked-up spot between girl and woman, where everything feels exciting, confusing, demanding, and extreme all at once. You’re ready to stand up to the world, be your own woman, but you don’t have your footing yet.” She let out a dry laugh. “Been there.”
“You ran away from home at sixteen.”
“I sure did.”
A flush of heat radiated over my chest and up my throat. Holy fuck. I’d betrayed Lindy, lied to her, and blown her off, and then her dad was forced to flip over to a new club, the enemy’s club. And in the next breath, her mother gets sick and dies. Her whole world had imploded.
An innocent girl who hadn’t deserved any of this. Any of it. And I’d been the first stick of dynamite to go off in those harrowing explosions she’d suffered. Of course Lindy had changed, gotten hard. Of course.
If only I …
My pulse picked up steam. Now, again, she was suffering loss. Her father missing, not knowing where he was, if he was even alive, and being forced to live in a new town with strangers.
I could help her now. I wanted to. I would. Would she let me?
“I was thinking…” My mother’s voice brought me back to the kitchen. “I have loads of pictures from back when we used to hang out with the Broken Blades. I always took pictures on the runs, at the parties.”
I chuckled. “The Kodak that would never die.”
“That camera was nothing special, but it never quit on me, and even more importantly, survived all those trips and parties. I haven’t packed the photo albums yet. I’ll find them.”
“I’m sure Lindy would enjoy seeing them. I would too.”
Her eyes narrowed at me. “I thought you and Lindy were friends back then?”
“We were.”
“You didn’t know about her mom dying?”
I brushed a hand over my mouth. “We didn’t stay in touch after I left for school.”
She let out a long sigh. “Think of what they went through. Pick’s club gets blown apart, Notch, their prez, gets killed, and everything the Blades owned gets picked over by the Feds and taken over by the Flames—who Notch hated with a passion, by the way.”
“Did all the Blades agree to become Flames? They voted on it?”
Mom’s brow furrowed. “No time for a vote. I think some of them, like Pick, joined the Flames on the spot. Finger must have given all those men an ultimatum: death or become a Flame. At least that’s how I imagined it because that’s how it had to be.”
“And the Blades who didn’t agree to join…”
“Disappeared.” Mom got up from the table and put her glass in the dishwasher. “And on the heels of all that chaos, as Pick’s trying to prove himself at a new club, which must have been a total bitch, he finds out his wife is sick.”
My fingers throttled the neck of my beer bottle. “Now for Lindy to have her Dad taken…”
“Awful.” Mom took the empty bottle from me and tossed it in the recycling bin. “That girl must have balls of steel by now. She seems to have a good head on her shoulders, and I’m glad she has Lenore and Finger. She needs good, strong people in her corner now. Real friends she can count on.”
“She does.”
She has me.
Mom wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “I have to get going. Ronny’s waiting for me to join him for a late dinner in Deadwood, then we’re going to stay at his place.”
We hugged goodbye, and she left, her car zipping out of the driveway onto the road. I locked the front door and heaved a breath. An ache pounded through my head with all the information I’d soaked in.
My gaze landed on a framed photo which sat on the top of an open packing box in the hallway. I picked it up. Me, Mom, and Dad were at a Jacks barbecue at the chapter in Colorado back when Dad first became president. I had to have been about three years old at the time. He held me in his arms, and I wore a tiny leather jacket, tiny black boots, and my fingers were in my mouth. Mom leaned against Dad. The three of us grinning. Happy. The future ours for the taking.
I put the photo back in the box with other framed photos Mom had stuffed in there and headed up to my room. My closet door stood open.
Dad had left a trail of foul fumes behind him.
Could it be true? Had he been some kind of traitor to his club with this Zed? Those fumes lodged in my throat, blocking the flow of air. No way. No fucking way.
But a bunch of notebooks and wads of cash told a different story. Snoopy smirked at me from his perch on the bag filled with the remains of my father’s black ambitions and betrayal. Money had never before felt so meaningless to me or so noxious. Sour roiled in my stomach. My chest ached.
Back downstairs in the living room, I grabbed the lone bottle of whiskey, ripped it open, and gulped. I caught my reflection in the mirror over the fireplace.
I was my father’s son, wasn’t I? Betrayal and lies and twisted deeds were in our blood. Nothing could wash that away. Nothing.
I drank, and the fiery liquor blazed down my throat, but it didn’t numb the burn of my sordid truth.