Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
DEUCE
For the rest of the day, I convince myself that whatever happened at The End was a one-off. Shit, I’d been locked up for five years. Sinking my dick into any snatch would be a bonus. Unfortunately, the more I try to play it off on my raging hard-on, the more I call bullshit on myself.
There were those few seconds when she looked up at me like I was something special, and it grabbed me. Not in my cock but deep in my chest—and that scares the shit outta me.
No time for that bullshit tonight because Scratch is bringing Fist to the Royal Flush, and we’re gonna meet up with the rest of the brothers and put together a solid plan for obtaining The End and finally bringing the Kings back to glory.
Fist swaggers over to the table, looking every bit like my former sergeant-at arms. Like Ace, they have an attitude you couldn’t crush no matter how hard you tried.
As sergeant-at-arms, Fist handled security within and outside the club.
His title made him the third-ranking officer, a title Fist took pride in and never wavered.
In a dust-up, Fist was the man I wanted covering my back.
I stand, and we do the male-hug-backslap thing, then he steps back and gives me a once-over. “You look good.”
“And you look exactly the same.” His dark, shoulder-length hair, multiple piercings and tattoos give him a pirate look and are a magnet for women.
“You ride here?” I ask.
“Abso-fuckin-lutely. My bike is the only thing I cared about in the last five years. The only reason I kept all those shit jobs at the hotels.” He pulls at the front of his cut. “Feels good to be wearing our colors again.”
My face sobers. “Agreed.” I turn to the others, also wearing their cuts. “Don’t plan on ever taking them off again.”
We settle in at the table, and I pour shots all around. We toast to the Kings and shoot the smoky tequila.
“I hear you have trouble keeping your valet jobs,” I say with a smirk.
“A bunch of tight assholes with no sense of adventure. Just ‘cause I took a few cars out for a ride while the owners were losing money at the tables, they get their balls in a twist.”
“Who caught you, the owners of the cars or the Hard Rock?”
Fist laughs. “It’s kinda complicated.”
I pour us all another shot, ‘cause shit with Fist is always complicated. “Humor me. It’s been a long-ass time since I’ve laughed at one of your screwed-up stories.”
“Okay.” He leans in, loving his stories as much as the rest of us. “I had this thing with the police chief’s wife. It was the perfect setup. The chief came to the Hard Rock every Wednesday, and Wednesday just happened to be my day off.”
“Convenient.” I shoot the tequila.
“That’s what we thought.” Fist shakes his head. “The chief is this short, fat, bald guy, and the wife is a real looker. Big tits, stripper hair, and lips that could suck the chrome off a Harley.”
“Why the fuck was she with a guy like that then?”
“Word is she was arrested for prostitution and passing bad checks. She did him a few favors in his office, and he got the charges dropped. He liked her services so much, he insisted they get married, or he’d make sure those charges stuck and she’d do some time.”
“Shit, you definitely have a type.”
Out of all of us, Fist has the most charm.
The rest of us look like what we are: rough, hard-ass bikers, but even with his tats and piercings, Fist has the smooth good looks of a fashion model, which mostly gets him into trouble.
Old girlfriends who wouldn’t give him up, jealous boyfriends and husbands, even strangers in a bar.
I’d thrown a punch more than once ‘cause Fist just couldn’t help himself from flirting with the wrong woman.
“So, what happened?” Ace asks.
“Every Wednesday, my buddy at the Hard Rock texts me when the chief gets there and then again when he leaves. Seems the chief has a love of roulette. No sweat.”
“Sounds easy enough,” I add.
“Except last Wednesday while me and the wife are screwing each other’s brains out, the chief comes barreling through the bedroom door.”
“Ohhhh, shit!” Shady bellows. “What the fuck happened?”
“Seems the chief had too much free booze at the tables, and, being an upstanding citizen, he didn’t wanna drive home drunk, so he called an Uber. He never got his car, so my friend never saw him leave.”
“In a way, it was his fault for getting his drink on and coming home early,” Ace reasons.
“Don’t you know, that’s just what the wife said?” Fist shakes his head.
“I gotta hear this.”
“There I am, balls deep, snorting blow off the bitch’s ass, which, I might add, is one of those bubble asses.
” He makes a gesture with his hands and huffs out a breath.
“And while the chief is screaming his damn head off, the wife is running around the room buck-ass naked. Meanwhile, I’m throwing my clothes on thinking I gotta get the fuck out. ”
“Did he try to arrest you?”
“He tried, but he was too damn drunk, so we made a deal. He’d forget about the blow and me bangin’ the shit outta his wife, and I’d keep quiet about it.
Apparently, he didn’t want any bad publicity in an election year.
He also wanted me to leave the Hard Rock.
He said it would be too upsetting to see me every Wednesday night.
” Fist shrugs. “It was a dumb-ass job anyway.”
“You ever see the wife again?” Ace asks.
“Yeah, we get together on Thursdays now. It’s his poker night at a buddy’s house, and the wife calls when the chief leaves.”
“You are fuckin’ unbelievable.” I pour us all another shot, and we toast to Fist and his crazy-ass stories.
“This place has really gone downhill.” Ace looks around the seedy strip club with its stained carpet and toxic combination of stale smoke and sickeningly sweet perfume. “Even Sinners looked better than this the other night.”
“When we ran the place, it was bangin’,” Ace adds. “Now it looks like a last stop for aged-out strippers and guys who can only get aged-out strippers.”
“Hard to believe it got so bad in five years.” I wanted to come here just to check it out, but it looks like it’s in even worse shape than I expected.
“Another fuck you from the DEA.” Speed shifts his glance to me. “I ain’t sayin’ that to blame you, just sayin’ the fuckin’ feds ripped everything away from us, then sold it to the lowest bidder just to dump it.”
“You see the guy with the golf shirt and khakis?” Shady motions to the front door. “I did some asking around at Sinners, and he manages the place for some realty company.”
“In other words, the place is owned and being run by people who have no idea how to run a strip club.” I state the obvious. “He sure don’t look happy.”
“He looks like he belongs on the first tee at Seaview.” Shady rolls his eyes. “And what’s with the bouncers? They don’t look like they could break up a fight at a kid’s birthday party.”
I laugh, then add, “There’s no fuckin’ way they’re making any money.”
On a Saturday night, there were more empty tables than full, and he hadn’t seen anybody paying for lap dances or heading for the private rooms where all the money was made. Not that I blame the guys with the sorry selection. In truth, the guys in this place looked as sorry as the women.
“Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to see this place with all the lights on.”
“Fuckin’ truth.” Ace and I tap fists.
“Shit, when we owned it and I ran it, this place was spotless, and it didn’t smell like piss and cum.”
I curl my lip at his description, but Scratch is right. When he managed this place for the Kings, we had top-notch dancers, filtered air and a sound system that didn’t keep cutting out.
Cheap perfume surrounds me, and I turn to a lined, haggard face squeezed into a skimpy dress two sizes too small.
“You look like you could use some company.” She runs her freakishly long, chipped nails over my cut, and I worry about her scratching the leather.
“I’m good, thanks.” I turn back toward my brothers.
Her hand slips to my thigh, then moves higher. “You sure?”
I grab her wrist and hold up her hand. “I said, I’m not interested.”
She yanks her hand out of my hold. “Well, fuck you, I’m just tryin’ to make a buck.” She flounces away, ass cheeks in full view.
Scratch points in her direction. “That is something that never would’ve happened when I was in charge. My women were classy even when they were selling tits and ass.”
“Truth, brother.” I laugh around my words ‘cause only Scratch could make a compliment sound sleazy.
“Don’t do any good just talking about all the shit that’s gone wrong.” Ace reaches for the bottle of tequila, then holds it up. “Like selling this shit tequila nobody ever heard of at table service.” He fills his glass, shoots it, and makes a face. “Tastes like piss water.”
“What the fuck are we gonna do about it?” Shady asks.
“We need cash, or some kind of collateral.” Scratch’s brain for numbers kicks in. “Without that, we got no leverage.”
“When I get The End, at least we’ll own some property, even if it’s in shit condition.”
“If you get The End.” Ace throws me a pointed look.
“I will,” I say with more confidence than I feel.
“I was thinking.” Scratch throws back another shot. “What if we have a talk with the preppy manager? Explain to him the advantages of letting us run this place, for a fee, of course, then we straighten it all out. Make suggestions to increase profit.”
“Giving this dump a good cleaning would be the first step,” I say. “Then hiring women who don’t look like they’re half asleep or jacked up on blow.”
“Right,” Scratch motions around the room, “and we use their money to make these adjustments, then when the place is humming again, we negotiate a price. By that time, we should all have some money socked away.” Scratch flips a look to Speed and Shady.
“No more pissing it away on bad bets and bimbos.”
“Shit, you never were any fun,” Speed mumbles.
“Just one thing,” Ace says. “What if our golf-shirt-wearing jerk-off or his investment company doesn’t go for it?”
I lean into the table. “I think we all know certain ways to make people change their minds and see our point of view.”
We all exchange a smirk when a heavy hand hits my shoulder.
“What the fuck are you losers doin’ in Rabid Dog territory?”