Chapter 6
MERRICK
Iron Jack makes a rare appearance at the Leaky Skull Monday night. Diesel gives me a nod to say he’s got the bar, so I head over to his table and sit across from him.
“Want a drink?” I ask.
“Vicki will bring me something shortly.”
I watch her madly choosing between bottles. “I think she’s got a thing for you.”
“She has her reasons.” He leans back in his chair, kicking out a boot. “I understand Marietta was upset when Two-Shit and Fancy showed up on campus.”
“They weren’t very discreet.”
Iron Jack lets out a long, annoyed breath. “I’ve had a word with them about that.”
“I don’t think she knew I was outside her apartment this morning.”
“Good. I could use some subtlety in the club.”
Vicki brings a well-filled glass of bourbon. “I think you’ll take to this one,” she says. “Smoky, like you like it.”
“Thanks, Vic.” He turns away from her.
She hesitates for a moment but realizes she’s dismissed and hurries away.
Iron Jack admires the golden liquor. “I appreciate that you didn’t tip the girl off.”
I don’t say it, but it wasn’t easy. Marietta is a dreamer. She often sat on a bench by her bedroom window, staring out at the night. She didn’t watch television or doom scroll on her phone.
Sometimes she’d read a book, but it seemed like every few pages, she would sigh and stare wistfully out at the sky, like a Disney princess.
I had to stay tucked out of sight. She knows my truck, and the bike would have been obvious, so I borrowed Two-Shit’s beat-up Toyota Corolla.
Nobody tried to approach, so it was an easy gig as far as security. But watching her sit at her window, haloed in light with her hair piled on top of her head, was melancholic. I kept wanting to fix things. Make her smile.
Iron Jack’s gruff voice startles me. “Have you arranged a meeting with the cherry?”
I shake off the image of her in the window. “Yeah, she called me when she spotted the club patrol. She’s coming here tomorrow morning.”
Iron Jack takes a sip of the bourbon. Vicki stands not too far behind him, watching his every move.
I lift my eyebrows at her, and she takes off.
“What does the girl know?” he asks.
“Just what she could see, that we’re watching out for her like we will if she takes us on.”
“Fancy told Diesel’s girl that we were protecting her cherry. Did she mention that?”
Oh, I bet she didn’t like that. “It didn’t come up.”
“Maybe she didn’t pass that information on.”
“Should I keep that on the down low? She’ll have a lot of questions.” She already asked several on the phone.
Iron Jack swirls the glass, staring into the depths of the bourbon. “I’ll leave that up to you. You know her better than we do.”
Do I? “I reckon.”
“You think you’ll claim her for yourself?” Iron Jack asks. “A prospect can have an ol’ lady. You just can’t step ahead of a club member with a bunny.”
That’s a line of thought I’m not willing to entertain in the least. Marietta is something I can’t figure out, between the sad girl with her book and the wildling flashing the bar. “I’m not looking for something long term.”
“I figured. You’d have bent that girl over backward by now if you had hit it off. I don’t figure she’s in it for the party.”
“No.”
Iron Jack downs the rest of the bourbon. “I recommend you convince her to be a house mouse. Get her to move in. Then we can protect her until she figures out what she wants. Seems like she might have a wild side. The brothers will be down for that when it’s time. I don’t want them jumping the gun.”
“Got it.”
“She got family that could cause trouble?”
“I don’t know.”
He plunks the empty glass on the table. “Ask her. We don’t want surprises.”
“I’ll find out what we need to know.”
“Good.” He stands. “Update me tomorrow.” He aims a finger at Vicki to acknowledge her, then heads out.
I sit there for a minute. He’s thought about this more thoroughly than I have. I guess that’s why he’s the president.
Vicki picks up his glass, staring at it like she might lick it. She’s mid-fifties to his forty, but I guess you want what you want.
“Hey Vic, who was president before Iron Jack?”
“His daddy.” She gets starry eyed. “He was one hell of a man. I did him for years. His ol’ lady didn’t get in the way of his side pieces.”
And now, she’s gaga over the son. That’s not weird at all. “But you aren’t connected to the club.”
“Theron froze me out. I mean, she didn’t raise a fuss when Steel stepped out because, really, a man’s going to do what a man’s going to do. But she got back at those of us he saw on the regular.” She wipes a circle of condensation off the table. “And he took a shine to me.”
I can’t help but ask, “And you want his son?”
She stands up. “No, no. It’s not like that. I don’t know. Being around him makes me feel like when I was with Steel.”
That makes a lot more sense.
“What happened to Steel? And Theron?” Their picture is on the wall in the meeting room, but nobody’s shared how they died.
“An eighteen-wheeler mowed them down two years ago. Supposedly an accident, but nobody believes that. Steel could ride circles around a demolition derby and not get a scratch. No way he got caught in a regular highway accident.”
“Did the club investigate?”
“Oh, yeah. Blood was spilled over accusations. It was one of the few times the Wild Hair got known for vengeance.”
“Was another club involved?”
“No, just some meth heads. They’re in the marsh. Deep in the marsh.” She tucks the bar towel into her waistband. “You going to reel in that city girl?”
“Not likely.”
“Huh. She wants you to wring her out, that’s for sure.”
“You know me, Vicki. I’m not interested in anybody.” I scoot back in the chair and head toward the kitchen.
That pretty virgin isn’t for me, and I know it. It doesn’t matter if I want to figure out what makes her stare into the night and why she goes so crazy when she’s at my bar.
Vicki laughs as I go. “I remember your brother saying the same damn thing.”
I don’t bother looking back as I say, “Good thing I’m not him.”
The next morning, I shake off the cobwebs from having to stay up half the night watching Marietta’s apartment. I’m hoping this security detail on her doesn’t last forever.
The cold front moved on, and the night was warm, so she didn’t sit in the window but out on her tiny balcony. She fell asleep out there, and it took a lot for me not to climb up and fix the blanket when it slid off her shoulders.
She got up in the middle of the night to go inside.
When she left to meet with me, I followed well behind before cutting up a side road to get here before her.
Two-Shit and Fancy will come by later to follow her back to Miami proper. She only seems to know about them watching during the day. I’m not telling her about my shift. She won’t like it, and I don’t want her aware that I see what she’s like alone in the night.
I wander the bar, adjusting a chair here and there. The place feels so much bigger with the remodel. There are no windows for me to check when she pulls up. Those were bricked over years before we took over. But she can’t be far behind. My short cut didn’t buy me a ton of time.
I wait another minute, then stride to the front door and unbolt the locks.
Sunlight pours inside, sending dust motes to dancing.
Marietta is walking up. She shields her eyes, and lifting her arm exposes a line of skin between a blue sweater and her white jeans. She’s cute in matching sneakers and a blue scarf holding her hair back like a girl in a 1950s ad.
No way someone like her belongs to a motorcycle club. She’s like an angel.
I step back and let her inside. She looks around.
“It’s different in the morning. Almost fresh.
” She stands in the triangle of light on the floor, bright and shiny compared to her surroundings.
I don’t close the door for a moment, hating to ruin the pretty image, but eventually, it doesn’t make sense to keep standing there.
The door clangs shut like a dungeon. I bolt it closed.
When I turn around, Marietta has hopped onto the bar, her purse beside her, swinging her feet. “It’s fun being here when it’s empty.”
It’s hard not to stare at her. When she’s come to the bar before, she’s been dolled up in makeup and tight clothes.
But this morning, she’s natural and innocent. I find my throat tightening. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. I want her to keep being that wistful girl in the window.
But it’s not up to me. I sit on a stool a few feet away from her.
She gets right to the point. “I want to be a club bunny. I want to have fun. I don’t care if I have to have sex with old men.”
The words coming out of her mouth are so out of sync with her sweet, gentle appearance that, at first, I think I’ve imagined them.
I stare at her as she watches me, her blue eyes as vivid as her scarf. “I mean it. I understand that you’re not interested in me, and I’m not going to throw myself at you anymore. Do you think I will get to choose who goes first? I’d really like to pick.”
I’m still in a daze. “What?”
“Please don’t make me say it all again. I’m awkward, in case you haven’t noticed. I figure if I have sex with a bunch of people in a short amount of time, I’ll catch up. Then I can decide what I want. Maybe I won’t scare men off anymore.”
I don’t know what to say about any of this. But I start with, “You scare men off?”
Her white tennis shoes swing back and forth.
“It’s not like I’ve never dated. I had a boyfriend in high school.
He was kind of a chess nerd, though. The one time he put his hand up my shirt, something happened because he jerked it out and straight up left me in the back room of a party. I had to call my mom to take me home!”
I can’t imagine getting that close to her and then just taking off. “He left you?”
“I mean, I know I’m not exactly well-endowed. But maybe there’s something about them that makes people squeamish?” She presses her hands to her chest. “Wait, can you feel me up and tell me?”
This girl is a shocker a minute. “I don’t think I should do that.”