9. Smoke
9
SMOKE
“ I fucking hate being inside,” I complain as we hit Denver’s city limits in Catfish’s truck two days later.
Catfish dips his head to look up at the clear blue sky.
“I hear you. Being caged isn’t my preferred method of transport. And it’s usually this time of year when I start getting that feeling of counting down the number of great riding days left in the year.”
The windows are down, some nasty rock is playing, and I’d rather be anywhere than cooped up in this truck, no matter how tricked out it is.
He picked me up outside the medical center where I had my dressing changed.
While I was there, I missed three more calls from my boss, who has now reverted to brutally direct texts.
Michael: Where the fuck are you?
Call in now.
Michael: Don’t make me discipline you for this bullshit too.
Michael: You can’t ignore this shit.
The truth is, I can.
And I fully intend to.
What are they going to do?
Arrest me for not showing up to work?
“The nurse said I might be able to get rid of the dressing at the next appointment.”
Catfish glances toward my ribs.
“How bad is it?”
I place my hand lightly on my ribs.
“Mostly second-degree burns. Some damage to my throat and lungs. Smoke burns and all that shit.”
“Man, you’ve been through it.”
“Least I’m alive.”
“Must be good to be back home, though. In your own bed. Drinking your own beer. Being back with the club.”
I rest my elbow on the open window and worry my lip between my finger and thumb.
“Yeah.”
“And are we talking about why you’ve been home nearly a week and Quinn is still at your house?”
I shake my head.
“We came to an agreement. She’s doing some shit around the house for me while I heal. Cleaning. Laundry. Shit like that.”
Catfish purses his lips for a second.
“Couldn’t she do that by popping in a couple of times a week?”
I sigh.
“What is this? Twenty questions?”
Catfish glances in the rearview mirror.
“What else is there to do? We’re going to be sitting in the truck for ten more minutes. Quinn’s an attractive woman. Wouldn’t blame you if you were knocking boots with her. Be fun to break in that tiny body of hers.”
I ignore the immediate feeling of jealousy that rumbles through my chest. The idea that Catfish sees Quinn for the attractive woman she is irritates me.
The kiss yesterday on the lawn was…
intense. Fueled by the way the afternoon played out.
We’d managed to escape, but the firepower had been provided by one of Lev Zakharov’s henchmen.
Saw one of them reaching for a phone, so I guess they’d put in the call while following us to let others know we were in town.
He even had the audacity to do a drive-by as we hurried back to our truck and made a childish gun gesture with two fingers, like he was trying to smoke us or some shit.
So, to arrive home to the thought Quinn wasn’t being properly taken care of, I stormed into that lot and reamed Shane out in a way that was disproportionate to what had happened.
And worse? Quinn looked at me with sympathy.
I placed my hand over hers.
You’re okay, Smoke. So am I.
It’s all okay.
I wasn’t able to bring myself to walk away.
All I could think about was that the world felt better because of the way she looked, hanging laundry on a washing line I should have hung for her.
Can’t believe I got territorial over a washing line.
And then, I kissed her.
A helluva first kiss.
Only kiss.
Her body melted against mine, and it was all I could do to not lift her off the ground, encourage her to wrap those fantastic legs of hers around my waist, and carry her back into the house.
She’s lucky I didn’t lie her down on the grass and fuck her right there.
I even muttered her name before the scent of her and the feel of her and the sound of her brought me to my senses.
It was like the sun fell out of the sky when I pushed her away from me and said no.
Her confusion was so palpable, I could feel it.
When she apologized, I wanted to give myself a beating.
“Fuck,” I mutter and thread a hand through my hair.
“So, you’re thinking about it then?”
“Fuck off, Catfish.”
He chuckles, and I flip him the bird.
But the frustration is aimed at myself.
I’m flip-flopping like a fish left on a dry dock.
A smart man would stick with the intellectual decision.
Quinn and I don’t work.
But an emotional man?
Fuck. I’m not one of those.
We pull up behind the weed dispensary run by Big Daddy, a bail bondsman friend of Butcher.
He mixes legally grown and accounted-for weed with some of our less legal product.
Cuts the two together, makes more of a profit.
“Been a good growing season,” Big Daddy says as he steps out, pushing a cart, to meet us.
He’s the stereotypical bail bondsman, a cross between law enforcement, drill instructor, and Dog the Bounty Hunter.
He wears a uniform that gives the impression of police authority but isn’t.
He dabbles in mostly aboveboard businesses: scrap metal, bounty hunting, and cannabis selling.
“Big Daddy,” I say, shaking his hand and nudging the cart back towards Catfish with my boot.
“Good to see you back in one piece, brother. Heard what happened. Sorry for the loss of your brothers.”
I nod.
“Thanks, man.”
“You good, Catfish?”
“Pity all this shit needs to be transported in a truck. Would be so much better to be on our bikes on a day like today.” Catfish grins as he grabs the delivery out of the back of the truck and starts loading up the cart.
There’s product that’s already been dried and some new plants for retail that would have been impossible to transport on our bikes.
Big Daddy hands me a brown envelope stuffed with cash.
There should be ten grand in there.
I don’t count it in front of him, but Catfish will make me count it when we get around the corner.
Sometimes business is a show of faith in person and a moment of scrutiny behind the scenes.
But as our treasurer, Catfish trusts no-one when it comes to dollars and cents.
Carl, one of Big Daddy’s employees, takes the cart.
“You brothers need anything from inside?” he asks.
Inside means everything he sells beneath the counter.
Harder drugs, the kind of pain pills you can get only through pricy insurance, and drugs for the weekenders like coke and Molly.
“I’m good, thanks,” I say.
“Me too,” Catfish says.
“How are the kids?”
Big Daddy grins.
“Just dropped Amelia off at UCLA for her first semester. Proud of that kid.”
“Gotta give ‘em a better path than we had,” Catfish says.
“That’s the truth,” Big Daddy agrees. “Not so happy about this co-ed halls situation. Some kid across the hall looked at her one too many times for my liking.”
I laugh at that. “Did you sort him out?”
“Might have mentioned loudly that I have friends who can make people disappear. And you are them people, in case I’m not clear.”
“Happy to help a friend out,” I say. “But you’re gonna have to prove to us that he did more than wink in your daughter’s direction. That may be taking the whole patriarchy thing a step too far.”
“Good deal,” Big Daddy says. “Same time next week. You got about twenty more of those plants, I’ll take ‘em.”
Once in the truck, Catfish throws his arm over the back of my seat and expertly reverses it down the narrow laneway toward the road.
“Can’t imagine having a college-age kid, let alone a daughter,” Catfish says.
“Can’t imagine having kids, period.” It’s not something I ever want to worry about. Happy to be Uncle Smoke to Fen and the other young kids in the clubhouse. I’ll teach ‘em to dirt bike, and fix shit up for them when it breaks. But I don’t want any of my own.
“Fucker just blocked the laneway,” Catfish mumbles. “Get out of the way, dipshit.”
I look in the side mirror and see a truck pulled to a halt.
Catfish hammers the horn, constant and loud. “Move, motherfucker.”
“That truck’s too souped-up for this neighborhood,” I say. Not sure what it is that makes me itch, but I don’t like the tinted windows and the fact I can’t see the driver.
“Well, he’s about to get some dings to his doors if he doesn’t move out of my way,” Catfish says, not slowing down.
If anything, he’s speeding up.
While he’s looking over his shoulder, I glance forward.
My heart rate notches up when I see three men are walking towards us.
And this isn’t some leisurely stroll, unless they usually wear masks and the one in the middle always takes a semiautomatic out with him when he meets up with friends.
“It’s a trap,” I shout, hammering on the horn as I grab my gun from its holster.
With any luck, Big Daddy will hear whatever happens next and bring some reinforcements.
Three men get out of the truck blocking our exit.
The first shot blows out the rear window of the truck, while the fast ra-ta-ta-ta-ta of the semi is followed by the ping of bullets hitting metal from the front.
“Not my fucking truck,” Catfish complains as he dodges splintering glass.
“We’re sitting ducks if we stay where we are,” I say, ducking in my seat.
There are too many bullets flying in too many different directions.
My heart races out of control.
The noises sound too familiar.
Like the snap of wood as it burns.
I shake my head. I can’t go back there right now.
But as I lift my head to quickly fire my weapon out of the shattered front windscreen, the noises land at the very base of my soul.
The scent of gun smoke blurs with that of burnt organic matter.
The heat of the sun beating down on the truck flashes with that of a forest fire.
For a heart stopping moment, I forget I’m in a Denver alleyway.
Catfish jams the vehicle from reverse into first gear, then slams the accelerator.
We head straight for the three men walking towards us.
It’s a messy ride. Knowing his truck is a write-off at this point, he no longer cares about dumpsters or other obstacles blocking our path.
He charges.
I grip my fists, hard, forcing myself back into the here and now as I glance up at the buildings around us.
“There are too many cameras on this end of the alley. Don’t kill ‘em unless you have to,” I say. While I’m sure we’d be able to defend ourselves if we were arrested, it would tie Catfish up in trials for the next three years.
The three shooters attempt to jump out of the way. Two make it. The third, the one with the semi, doesn’t quite and gets clipped by the grill of the truck.
The thud is sickening, as is the scream that follows.
“Should be grateful I only broke your fucking leg, asshole.
” Catfish sticks his arm out of the window and flips them the bird.
When I glance in my rearview mirror, I see the guy on the ground.
One of his friends attempts to help him stand.
But then, he falls back down to the ground in pain.
My sympathy is nonexistent.
“Same time next week. That’s what Big Daddy said, right?”
Catfish nods as he focuses on reaching the other end of the alleyway.
“Why?”
“They seemed too prepared. Like they know your schedule.”
“Fuck me,” Catfish mutters.
“This is usually Wraith’s run, but I offered to do it for the summer because Fen’s school is out. I’ve done it this time every week.”
“Go around the block, fast. I want to pull up behind that truck, follow them where they head back to,” I say.
“The truck’s shot up, and I’m probably running on a rim at the back. You can’t miss us.”
“Don’t give a fuck. We’ll be stop and start with all these stoplights, anyway. Plus, you’re the treasurer of the club. Pay for the damn rims with club funds.”
Catfish is right.
We aren’t discrete. Thankfully, there isn’t the sound of a flat tire smacking against the asphalt, a rhythmic drumbeat that would announce our arrival.
However, we do get plenty of looks, and more than one person raises their phone to take a picture of the truck.
But, with some careful driving, and always staying at least seven cars back, we manage to catch up with the truck that’s decided to drive in a way so as not to catch attention either.
Stands out like a sore thumb, though.
It rides high, so high, it’s easy to see over the other vehicles stuck patiently in traffic.
It winds west out of Denver, headed to the outskirts, to the damn warehouse we found our weed at when they stole it from us.
They park up, and a guy in a gray suit and a crisp white shirt emerges from inside the building.
“Holy fuck,” Catfish mutters, grabbing his phone to snap a couple of photographs.
“That’s Lev Zakharov. He’s the guy who pretended he was interested in Ember to get intel on the club. Butcher and Atom have been looking for him.”
I reach for my gun.
“If they want him, then we should get him.”
“Wait, look.”
More men are coming out of the warehouse, and from the way Zakharov yells and tugs at his hair, it’s apparent he’s angry.
“We should get out of here,” Catfish says.
“Two of us in a fucked-up vehicle against all of them is the equivalent of signing our death warrant.”
He starts the truck and turns it around, and then I put my hand on his wrist. “Stop. Be ready to go when I tell you.”
“Ah, don’t do this,” Catfish says.
I grin, feeling closer to normal than I have in a long time, as I carefully point my gun in Lev’s direction.
It’s gonna be hard to hit him without a proper rifle and scope.
But I empty my chamber anyway.
“Go,” I yell. But not before I see Lev Zakharov drop to his knees.