Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Lotion For the Motion
S lade rested face down on the pavement, handcuffs tight around his wrists. Next to him, Linc stared, in the same position. Then there was Priest, Darrow, Monte, and Deed.
The enforcers had taken off and the prospects were on their knees, hands on their heads. A good test for them. Nobody knew their own reaction to law enforcement until they faced it. Having some cop or detective promising you a miserable life in prison. Working deals for information. Who would talk. Who would stay silent.
Cyrus stood with his arms folded, refusing to get down on the ground. Chief Dick Rundle kept growling through gritted teeth, telling Cyrus this was for his own good.
Image… it was all about the image…
Fitz stood next to Cyrus, refusing too, not wanting the club’s president to be the only one standing. Cyrus offered his wrists. “Cuff me, Chief. But I am not getting down on the ground. I’m not bowing down to you.”
“Fuck this,” Fitz spat. “Where’s the fucking warrant, huh? You’re acting like we’re some kind of fucking group of terrorists. Fuck you!”
Everyone knew at that point Chief Dick Rundle had no choice. He nodded to his biggest deputy and that deputy put Fitz down to the ground. Hard. Really hard.
Slade rolled to his back and sat up and started to stand. “What the fuck was that about?”
Now it began to get out of hand. And fast.
Outlaws vs the actual law.
Cyrus and Chief Dick Rundle meeting eyes, both knowing this was bad for them all. Finally, the chief presented his firearm, raised his right hand into the air and fired off three rounds. Everyone froze.
“Now if you don’t want county to show up and start taking names and numbers, I suggest you all calm the fuck down. Everyone.”
Slade had been backed up against a wall, a deputy with a hand to his throat.
“Safe to say with the way things have been going around town, tensions are high right now,” the chief said.
He looked around as he spoke but the words were meant directly for Cyrus’s ears.
“Hillstone, we find anything here?” Chief Dick Rundle called out.
The deputy— Miles Hillstone —shook his head. “No, sir. Not today.”
“Then the asshole on the ground is right. We shouldn’t be here. Take the cuffs off them all. Everyone is free to roam. For now.” The chief looked to Cyrus. “A word with you?”
As Cyrus nodded, Fitz was pulled up to his feet. He turned and threw a heavy punch into the gut of the deputy that took him down.
“That’s enough, Fitz!” Linc roared.
“I’ve got him,” Priest said as he lumbered toward Fitz.
Fitz backed up, hands up, lip curled.
“Sorry about that,” Cyrus said to the chief. “Like you said, tensions are high right now.”
“Yeah, well something is going on around here, Cyrus.”
Slade and Linc had gotten close enough to hear the conversation.
“Weird to me is that you guys all attacked a van,” Cyrus said. “What was that about?”
The chief shook his head. “Bad intel I suppose. Cyrus, I’m not kidding around. The heat is getting hotter by the second. I’m holding off what I can, when I can.”
“You run the town, dammit,” Slade growled.
The chief looked at Slade and grinned. Everyone knew Chief Dick Rundle was more of a figurehead than actual power. He did have a voice though. His words held meaning. But to claim he ran the town… that was a good one by Slade.
“Look, I don’t know where your van info came from,” Linc said. “Taking it out on us like this? That’s not a good look.”
“Okay, listen,” Cyrus said. “Let your boys do their thing. Surface area, huh? You’re not coming into the clubhouse or any other building on the property. You have nothing. You’re not going to get a warrant. As far as those two murders go, you have to let us do our thing. That means you keep any local person looking to write a story about it under wraps. This cannot catch anywhere.”
“It’s prime for it though,” Slade said. “That means you have to put in some actual work, Chief .”
“Listen, I was working intel!” Chief Dick Rundle suddenly yelled. “You boys don’t like it? Fuck yourselves! I’ll tear this entire place apart. You can’t stop me. What the fuck are you going to do about it? Nothing!”
The chief threw his shoulder into Cyrus and walked away. Now, by doing so, the chief had to jump up on his toes to even attempt to match the height of Cyrus’s shoulder. And later on, the chief would need to ice up his shoulder because a large bruise would have formed. Hitting Cyrus’s shoulder was like running right into a brick wall. Ouch.
The police finally cleared out. Slade knew it was time to pray.
This prayer would be private and put the entire club in danger.
Cyrus paced like a lion. So pent up, unable to sleep, his steel-cut face looking dirty but not tired. That was one thing about Cyrus, he could stay awake for days and never look tired. He just looked meaner… and meaner …
“ Prez ,” Linc said. “Let me get Maggie and a couple other deecee’s to have their way with you, huh? Take a load off. Literally.”
“You know what we just figured out, right?” Cyrus asked.
Slade swallowed hard. He leaned against an old work bench. At one point in time this garage had been used for fixing cars and motorcycles and anything else with an engine. Back in the day, JC didn’t just want to run with a bunch of outlaws. Johnny Cutter might have been a little bit crazy to those who didn’t know him, but he believed in a sense of brotherhood and extended that into a sense of community.
Mr. Jenkins who lived in the baby-blue ranch two blocks away? The guy who served in fucking WW2? Storming beaches. Defending freedoms. Huh? You think for a second when that man pulls on his lawnmower and it doesn’t start I’m not going to be the one to fix that up for him? Huh?
The vision evolved, as required by time. Even this prayer right now would have never happened. JC would have fixed ten lawnmowers for free but if someone even thought about acting like a rat in his club, he would have killed everyone and started over.
“Fuck me,” Linc said. “It could have been a little bit easier. One of the prospects. An enforcer. Christ. Why?”
“Power, greed, money,” Slade said. “You name it. It’s not like it used to be.”
“We go with what we know,” Cyrus said. “We faked a van full of coke and what happened? The van didn’t get randomly pulled over, did it? It was swarmed. They knew.”
“They found nothing in the van but a few pies,” Linc said.
“Donating baked goods to a senior citizens home,” Slade said. “But still… we have a big problem. Bigger than just a rat. We have a rat at our table.”
Cyrus turned and hammered his fists down to an old workbench so hard that rusted tools jumped into the air, along with years’ worth of dust and grime.
“ FUCK! ” Cyrus roared.
“We have to play it cool still,” Slade said. “Unless you want to go extreme, Prez .”
“There’s a lot of heat in town for that,” Cyrus said. “I can’t kill everyone and then put together another table. Not with these fucking murders. Speaking of which…”
Cyrus now eyed Slade as an easy target. Slade was a big man. A strong man. He fit the outlaw code just by look and size alone. A gruff face. Scruff on his face. Dangerous eyes. But when Cyrus looked at Slade…
“I’ll have Priest cut the heads off the prospects if you’d like,” Slade said. “But this one is smart. Nelle is very smart. She snuck right out.”
“And that’s it? You let her go?”
“No,” Slade said. “We’ve been a little busy here, Prez .”
“Before something really stupid happens here,” Linc cut in, “can we take inventory? I think it’s safe to say we trust Slade. Let him do this thing. With this warning.” Linc pointed at Slade. “Find the woman and figure it out. She can’t listen to rules, then make her. Put your ink on her ass or right on one of her cunt lips and make her know what’s what.”
Slade flexed his jaw and nodded. He looked at Cyrus for approval.
Cyrus gave the nod. “Fair enough. As far as our table goes, we know we have a rat. A legit rat. We know the names. It’s hard to decide what’s what. We can paint them all as rats by how they act. We can kill them all. We can chain them all up and look for a confession. Right now though we need to preserve who we are. And what we’re doing. The three of us have to keep the conversations on point yet at minimal.”
“No offense, Cyrus, but that’s a slippery slope,” Slade said. “You’re talking about leaving table guys out of talks and possibly votes. Your cocaine deal rattled a lot of the guys. Even though it was fake. They didn’t know it was fake.”
“When we find this rat, Slade, I’m going to offer him up to every person at that table,” Cyrus growled. “I’m going to explain everything that was done and why. And all their anger can go to the rat. And when it’s all said and done, if someone wants to call a vote to change leadership, go for it. Because you and I—and all the others—know that if JC were in my shoes, you’d all be dead by now.”
The words could not be spoken any clearer than that. There was nothing left to say. Cyrus exited the old building first. Slade and Linc stared at one another.
Again, nothing else to say.
Not too far from the clubhouse, while Slade and Linc silently agreed that the club was teetering on being fucked up for a long time, Nelle threw two bags of clothes into the back seat of her car. Bucky joked in a morbid way, asking her if someone else had died. She told him she needed to settle up on some estate stuff for her sisters.
Lies.
She spent all night awake, making some videos and putting together some facts about items in the store, giving her content for a little bit. She told Bucky not to pay her and that she was sorry. She also told Bucky to keep the doors locked and not to answer any calls, knocks or anything. No matter what.
Bucky laughed. Nelle didn’t. She got into her car. She drove fast.
And she checked her mirrors every few seconds.
Darrow pointed to a box on the bar.
“Something came for you, Slade.”
Slade looked around. “Who the fuck brought this in? It could be—”
“I brought it in,” Priest said. “Gave it a good shake. Nothing blew up. I’m still standing.”
“Real fucking smart move,” Slade growled.
What the fuck is this ? Slade thought to himself. He hadn’t ordered anything. And even if he did, why the fuck was this suddenly a spectacle to watch? Everyone stared at him, including the deecee s.
Maggie leaned against the bar with her perky little tits damn near showing from the top of her way too small tank top. Slade curled his lip, walked over to the bar and saw the box had been opened, that it was just shut using the flaps.
“What the fuck?”
He opened the box and saw some weird looking wooden doll staring up at him. He lifted it out of the box… His mind raced, thinking of Nelle. Wondering if this was a sign. A warning. If it was…
“There’s more in there,” Darrow said.
Slade reached into the box and found a box of tissues. Then a bottle of hand lotion. He looked at Darrow, eyes wide.
“Since you like jerking off to antique dolls,” Darrow announced. “Now you can do it in person!”
The entire clubhouse erupted into laughter.
“Did I miss something?” Cyrus asked.
Slade charged at Darrow as Darrow laughed. He tackled Darrow into a wall and threw a right hook that smashed into Darrow’s jaw.
“It was a joke!” Priest roared.
“You’re next, prick,” Slade yelled.
He moved for Priest and anyone who knew Priest knew he would never back away from a fight. Fitz stepped between them at the last second. Both Slade and Priest hit Fitz, sending him stumbling back and down to his ass. Linc jumped in and wrapped an arm around Slade’s chest, pulling him away.
“Just a joke, brother,” Linc said. “Just a joke…”
Darrow wiped blood from his mouth, still smiling. “That was worth it, Slade. You know it!”
Slade shook Linc away and faced the bar. He punched the box of tissues away. He grabbed the doll and smashed it against the side of the bar. Before he could get to the lotion, Maggie snagged it.
She smiled at Slade. “Hey. We should keep this. I bet I can make this joke worth your time now. What do you think?”
Slade stared at her, more than ready to go. The clubhouse door opened and Virus cleared his throat.
“We have company,” he announced.
Everyone looked at Virus, figuring either Chief Dick Rundle was back, or worse yet, county was here to start asking questions about stuff.
“Who?” Cyrus growled.
Virus looked at Slade and nodded.
“That woman that escaped is back and asking for Slade.”