Chapter Three
Whiskey
The nameless club bunny pouring bourbon into my glass is wearing a Property of No One shirt like she invented the damn idea. White cotton, black marker, big uneven letters dragged across her tits.
Legend started that shit, and now every woman who spends more than ten minutes inside the old jail thinks scribbling it across a shirt makes her mysterious.
This one ain’t mysterious.
She’s a redhead, twenty-something, and smells like Axe body spray, cigarettes, and whichever brother dragged her through the Lockup doors before sunrise. She leans over the bar far enough to make sure I can see down the shirt while bourbon glugs into my glass.
“Breakfast,” she says.
I look at the drink, then at her. “You trying to kill me?”
“You’re the one drinking whiskey before eight in the morning.”
“It’s bourbon.”
She blinks. “Same thing.”
“Get out of Kentucky.”
A prospect groans from the floor behind her like even half-dead he agrees with me.
She laughs like I said something charming instead of threatening exile.
The bar inside the old county jail sits where the booking desk used to be, back when this building belonged to men who wore badges and pretended the cells could hold anybody worth catching.
The Kings took it over years ago, knocked holes through walls, welded old cell doors into tables, and turned the holding area into a clubhouse.
Most mornings, the Lockup still looks like a crime scene.
A prospect is passed out beneath the stairs with one boot missing and a bra looped around his neck.
Dried blood marks one knuckle and lipstick marks the other, which about sums up his night.
Somebody left half a biscuit on top of the old fingerprinting machine, and three empty bottles sit inside a row of barred cells nobody bothered unlocking after last night.
Waylon Jennings plays low from the jukebox in the corner, probably so nobody wakes the dead. Unfortunately, half the men in here ain’t dead. They’re just hungover. I lift the glass and take a drink.
The bunny props both elbows on the bar. “So how’d you get the name?”
I swallow. “What name?”
She smiles. “Whiskey.”
I glance down at the patch over my chest like I forgot it was there. “Oh. That.”
“Yeah, that.”
“Don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember getting your road name?”
“Nope.”
She leans closer. “You were drunk?”
“Nope.”
“Got into a fight?”
“Nope.”
“Stole a whiskey truck?”
I roll the glass between my palms, ice knocking softly against the sides. “Nope.”
Her smile falters.
“What happened, then?”
“Club business.”
“That mean you ain’t gonna tell me?”
“That means you should quit asking.”
She watches me another second, still trying to decide whether I’m flirting.
I ain’t.
That don’t stop most women in Hell. The patch does half the work, and reputation handles the rest. Women see a King and start imagining leather, handcuffs, beard burn on their thighs, and somebody dangerous enough to make their bad choices feel romantic.
Reality, though, usually involves dirty dishes, parole officers, somebody’s tits stuck to a leather couch in July, and a prospect cussing because he lost his keys.
The bunny reaches across the bar and runs one fingernail around the rim of my glass.
“You always this friendly?”
“Only before coffee.”
“You ain’t drinking coffee.”
“Exactly.”
A laugh comes from the other end of the bar.
Holler sits on a stool with his elbows spread wide and a plate piled with eggs, gravy, and enough bacon to stop his heart before lunch. He looks like he slept in his cut, mostly because he did. His beard is wild, his eyes are red, and a fresh bruise darkens one side of his jaw.
He points his fork at the bunny. “Darlin’, if Whiskey wanted company, he’d ask for a calculator.”
She frowns.
I look at Holler. “Numbers put out more reliably.”
“Numbers are the only things you trust.”
“Exactly. Numbers don’t ask stupid questions.”
My laptop sits open beside the bourbon with last night’s Fire Pit receipts, three dues envelopes, and a stack of club bills I was supposed to finish before Holler started running his mouth.
The bunny straightens. “I was just being friendly.”
Holler gives her a sympathetic look. “He don’t understand friendly.”
“I understand it.”
“Then show us.”
“Fuck off.”
Holler grins. “See.”
The bunny rolls her eyes and walks away, taking the bourbon bottle with her.
I glance at Holler’s plate. “You eating all that?”
“Yep.”
“You know grease ain’t a food group.”
“It is in Kentucky.”
“You’re gonna die on that stool.”
“Better than dying sober.” He shovels another forkful of gravy into his mouth like cholesterol is a club challenge.
I take another drink.
Holler jerks his chin toward the empty space the bunny left beside me. “Asha your type?”
“Asha? No.”
“Big titties.”
“Got eyes.”
“Long legs.”
“Still got eyes.”
“Breathing.”
I look at him.
He grins around a mouthful of biscuit.
Holler ain’t subtle, but he’s useful. Good in a fight, better with a rifle, loyal enough to die for the club and dumb enough to volunteer before anybody asks.
He’s also my daughter’s uncle, which means I tolerate more shit from him than I would most men.
His grin fades when he catches my expression.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
“Speaking of blondes…”
I set my glass down. “You hear from your sister?”
The fork stops halfway to his mouth.
“Of course.”
“What?”
“The reason you’re sitting here drinking bourbon and pretending not to think.”
“I don’t pretend.”
“You do it all the damn time. The reason you don’t know that bunny’s name.”
“Holler.”
He lowers the fork to his plate. “Yeah. She called.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“What’d she want?”
“You.”
My teeth come together hard enough to ache.
Holler notices.
“She always wants you,” he adds. “That ain’t news.”
“She ask about Wren?”
The fork starts scraping his plate again, slower this time. Holler looks down at the gravy instead of at me.
That’s answer enough.
I pick up my glass but don’t drink.
“She asked how she was.”
“No. She asked whether I was still keeping Wren from her.”
“Same thing, according to her.”
“It ain’t.”
“I know.”
The old jail settles around us. Pipes knock somewhere inside the walls, and one of the men sleeping in the cells snores hard enough to make a bottle vibrate against the bars.
Holler reaches for his coffee. “She says she’s doing better.”
“She always says that.”
“Says she’s clean.”
“She always says that too.”
“Been going to meetings in Official.”
“Good for her.”
He looks at me over the rim of his mug. “She wants to see Wren.”
“No.”
“Whiskey.”
“No.”
“She’s her mama.”
“She lost custody.”
“You know I ain’t defending what she did.”
“Sounds close.”
His expression hardens. “She’s still my sister.”
“And Wren’s still my kid.”
“She’s her kid too.”
“Not when the court says otherwise.”
The bunny farther down the bar drops an empty bottle into a trash can. Glass clanks loud in the silence between us as she pretends she’s not eavesdropping.
“The court also says half the shit we do is illegal,” Holler says.
“That ain’t the same.”
“No, it ain’t.” He leans closer, forearms braced against the bar. “But you can’t shut her out forever.”
“Watch me.”
“She loves you.”
That lands exactly as bad as he means it to.
I turn my head.
Holler sighs. “Hell, Whiskey, she always has. And I know deep down you still love her.”
“Love don’t make somebody safe.”
“No.”
“Love don’t make her sober.”
“No.”
“Love didn’t stop her from leaving Wren alone for two damn days.”
His mouth closes.
The memory sits between us whether either of us wants it there or not. Wren was five. The front door was unlocked, there wasn’t anything in the refrigerator a five-year-old could turn into a meal, and her mother was gone doing God knows what with God knows who.
My little girl was sitting beneath the kitchen table in a princess dress, holding an empty cereal box against her stomach. I found her because Holler called and said his sister wasn’t answering.
Two days.
Forty-six hours, according to the police report. My daughter had been alone for forty-six fucking hours.
My fingers curl around the edge of the bar until the wood bites into my palm. Better that than putting my fist through it.
Holler’s voice is quieter when he speaks again. “I know.”
“Then don’t ask me to hand Wren back because your sister swears she’s changed.”
“I ain’t asking that.”
“You’re close enough.”
“I’m asking you not to make me lie when she calls.”
“Tell her the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That Wren’s safe.”
“That ain’t what she wants to hear.”
“Then she can hang up.”
Holler drags his thumb through a smear of gravy on his plate, staring at it like the answer might be hiding there. “She ain’t gonna quit.”
“Neither am I.”
He looks ready to keep arguing, but Legend steps through the doorway before he gets the chance.
Every man still breathing inside the bar straightens. At least a little. The prospect beneath the stairs even opens one eye before apparently deciding consciousness ain’t worth the effort.
Legend wears his cut over a black thermal shirt, beard trimmed and eyes already mean. He doesn’t have to raise his voice to quiet a room. Being Prez handles that.
“Church.”
Holler looks mournfully at his breakfast. “Now?”
Legend doesn’t answer.
Holler shoves half a biscuit into his mouth and stands.
I finish the bourbon in one gulp.
The bunny watches from the far end of the bar as I leave the glass where it sits and follow the brothers into the back.
Church is held in what used to be the county arrest-records room. The Kings ripped out most of the filing cabinets years ago, but the concrete walls and barred window stayed. Now club maps, old photographs, and a framed list of brothers who ain’t coming back cover the walls.
The room carries that faint damp stink every building this old seems to have no matter how much money gets dumped into it.