CHAPTER One
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the Yellow Rose tryin’ to have a peaceful and romantic dinner with my wife if it’s any of your business, which, of course, it’s not.” Brant sounded a little irritated, but he didn’t like being bothered after hours. “Since both of us know you don’t give a damn where I am, why don’t you spit it out and tell me why you’re callin’ at eight o’clock at night.”
“You belong to the Yellow Rose?” Texas Ranger Russell sounded a little incredulous.
“My wife belongs. She plays fucking golf. I’m a plus one.”
Ranger Russell chuckled softly. “Tell her I send my regards and will talk to you another time, like first thing in the mornin’?”
“You’d be better off if I refuse to tell her who interrupted our evenin’. Guess that’s your way of sayin’ it’s important? The mornin’ thing?”
“Yep.”
“Coffee at Jim’s. Nine thirty.”
“You sleepin’ in?”
“None of your damn business. Christ. You are nosey.”
“Goes with the job.”
“I knew you for fifteen years before you were a Texas Ranger. You were always nosey.”
Russell grunted. “Maybe. Nine thirty at Jim’s.”
He ended the call.
“So much for not telling me who that was. There’s only one Texas Ranger who gets the full Billy Goat Gruff treatment from you.”
Brant grunted. “Not bein’ gruff. Just remindin’ him that I was the one who beat up the kids who gave him a wedgie in junior high. Gotta keep it straight.”
Garland treated him to the full-throated barmaid laugh that belied her debutante upbringing. “Are you making that up?”
“Hell no. He woulda been stuffed in a locker, too, if it wasn’t for me.”
“So you’re not just my hero then.”
It was easy for Brant to get lost in her smile and hard to figure out whether she was being serious.
“You teasin’?”
“What’s the right answer?”
He laughed.
Brant was hidden behind a newspaper in a booth covered with turquoise vinyl. He wasn’t wearing club colors. He only wore his cut when he was on club business, a charity ride or rally. Except for the faded tee, worn jeans, and biker boots, he could have been any exceptionally good-looking fifty-year-old who kept rock-hard abs because his wife purred about them when she rode behind him.
“That you buried under layers of dead tree?” Forge Russell said, sliding into the booth opposite Brant Fornight.
Brant lowered the paper. “You scared of the Chinese, Russ?”
The Ranger took off his cowboy hat, set it on the bench seat beside him, and ran a hand through his hair. “Not today.”
“Well, you oughtta be. They’re comin’ for your grandchildren.”
“Let ‘em come. My grandchildren will be armed and ready.”
“Sure about that?”
“No. But I’m too busy to think about it today.” Russell looked around the coffee shop. “Notice that nobody else is readin’ a newspaper made of actual paper?”
Brant glanced around. “Why would other people’s intellectual laziness be of concern to me?”
“I’m not sayin’ they don’t keep up with the news. Although that’s likely true for most. I’m just sayin’ you’re way behind the times. You could read the same stuff on your phone.”
Brant took a swig of coffee. “Thanks for the tip.” The sarcastic tone was anything but subtle. “Old school suits me fine.”
“Can’t say that surprises me any.”
The waitress stopped at the table’s edge with a carafe of coffee in her hand. “You want coffee, darlin’?” she asked Ranger Russell.
His answer was a soft grunt and a slight shove of the empty mug in her direction. While she was pouring, she said, “What else you havin’?”
“Three eggs over easy. Double order of bacon. No potatoes. Breakfast is not time for potatoes.”
She smiled. “Butter on your toast?”
“That’s a silly question, young lady,” he said. “I’m not havin’ toast. I’m havin’ biscuits.”
“Butter or gravy?”
When he looked up, she shook her head and grinned. “Let me guess. I’m thinkin’ gravy.”
Russell nodded. “Damn straight.”
When she was out of earshot, Brant said, “Eggs. Not one. Not two, but three. Double bacon. Gravy. Jesus, Russ. You must be tired of livin’.”
“When did you get prissy about food?”
“When I decided I want to stay alive to see next week.”
“Yeah? Well, some of us do this thing called work. Uses up energy.”
“You think I’m a lady of leisure? That must be why you’re actin’ like I have nothin’ better to do than talk about the Chinese.” Russell took a swig of coffee. “If you’re waitin’ for me to beg, you and your bacon are gonna die sittin’ in that spot right there and I’ll insist on bein’ the one to eulogize you.”
Russell laughed out loud. “Maybe I’m masochistic but I’d like to hear that.”
Brant shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Alright. Here it is then. I’m callin’ a marker.”
Eyes narrowed slightly, Brant said, “’Cause of the Cannon Johns thing? That’s a pretty fast turnaround. You let the one before that sit for over twenty years.”
“Sign of the times.”
“Well, spit it out. What do you want? I can’t sit here all year havin’ my reputation tainted by bein’ seen with you.”
“Just keep your pants on. I’m gettin’ there. We’ve been monitoring the activities of a couple of Waco clubs. Marauders and the Stars & Bars for a few months. Waco is what you’d call strategically situated halfway between Dallas and Austin.” Brant looked blank. “Our two most biker-dense cities.”
“You keep stoppin’ like you think I know what you’re talkin’ about. I don’t.”
“Something’s up.”
“Nothing to do with us. We’re legit. You know that.”
“Yeah. But you’re still bikers.”
“Won’t deny that.”
“A finer point on it being that you’re still part of the Texas Confederation of Clubs. Which means you can get closer than we can.”
Brant leaned back into the booth. “Like I said, we’ve been outta the outlaw business for a long time. I belong, but I don’t go to C.O.C. meetings. At least not often.”
“True enough, but you could help out here. Would do you good to be on the side of good.”
“Now you’re goin’ comic book on me? Good and evil,” Brant scoffed. “Jesus. Not sayin’ I will, but just out of curiosity, how would you think the Sons could help?”
“You got a new guy prospecting.”
Brant sat back, raised his chin, and cocked an eyebrow. “You watchin’ us, Russ?”
Russell shrugged without looking away. “We watch all the clubs. Even the ‘legitimate’ ones. Gotta justify our paychecks.”
Brant looked down at his cup and turned it around in a circle. “Huh.”
“Anyhow, your new guy. Transfer from California? The Huns, I believe it is? His old outfit is affiliated with Marauders.”
Brant was beginning to see where this was going. “Guy you’re talkin’ about. The reason he left the Huns was ‘cause he’s lookin’ for a situation that doesn’t require being armed even when asleep.”
That conversation thread came to an abrupt stop when the waitress showed up and set an oval platter down in front of the Ranger. “See those people over there?” Russell turned to see where she was pointing. It was a family looking at him eagerly. Mom, dad, two tween kids. “They’re tourists. From England. They want to know if you’ll take a picture with them.”
Russell turned back around, his color rising. “Jesus Christ,” he said. Brant covered his mouth and turned the other way to keep from laughing out loud. “They gettin’ ready to leave?” he asked the waitress.
“Nah,” she said. “Their food’s not up yet.”
He was disgruntled, but reluctant to appear crotchety. “Tell ‘em they can catch me when I go.”
The waitress grinned. “Sure thing.”
“What is the world comin’ to?” he said to Brant.
“I guess it’s outpacin’ us old timers.” He grinned at Russell. “Can’t wait to tell the boys that you got a request for a tourist photo.” He raised his chin toward the visiting Brits. “Maybe they’ll give you a nice tip.”
It didn’t take much to push Russell the rest of the way into full-blown irritation. “Just shut the hell up about it. We got serious things to discuss.”
“A little comic relief never hurts.”
Russell gave him a look that might have stopped a criminal in his boots, but it just made Brant laugh harder. “As I was sayin’, we could use your boy on the inside. Find out what’s goin’ on up close and personal. Clear your marker with me.”
“Christ.” Brant let that hang in the air while Russell began making short work of breakfast. “What do you think’s goin’ on?”
“Just between you and me, there’ve been a few incidents between the clubs in the past few months. Things are heatin’ up. Somebody from one club gets caught on the I-35 and beat with a hammer. Somebody from the other club gets caught outnumbered, throttled with chains, and has his bike stole. You know.
“This thing between these two clubs goes all the way back to 1970. Marauders abducted two Stars & Bars members who’d cheated them on a meth deal. Marauders forced them to dig their own graves, then shot them and set fire to their bodies.”
“Christ.”
“The bad blood goes back a couple of generations now. This is more than little boys that didn’t grow up, wantin’ to play cowboys and Indians with real weapons.”
“Maybe. But it started with that Ghost Rider thing. Men who’d name a club after a comic book character? Well, far as I’m concerned, that says it all.”
Russ narrowed his eyes. “So you’ve been payin’ attention.”
“I read the paper.”
“Yeah.” Russell glanced at the folded paper set off to the side. “So you do.”
“And I hear stuff now and then. In addition to a string of even less respectable activities, Stars & Bars have been tryin’ to shake down the Marauders. Allegedly. Marauders are refusin’ to pay. It’s a ballsy move. Marauders have clubs in every Texas city plus a couple in Colorado. Same in New Mexico.”
“Allegedly.”
“Yeah. The refusal to pay is allegedly why the Marauders’ club in Mexia was burned down three months ago.”
“Thing’s comin’ to a head.”
“How do you know?”
“Let’s just say these things have a rhythm and things are progressin’ according to pattern. It’s all about historical context. People never change.”
“So much for evolution.”
“The last time there was an evolutionary shift was when we started walkin’ on two legs and our bodies are still makin’ us pay for that one. Say, did you see that thing online? That video with the full-grown male gorilla walkin’ on two legs. Bikers could learn a thing or two about swagger.” He laughed as he stuffed a biscuit in his mouth. Brant just stared. “Anyway, it’s comin’.
“Stars & Bars are outnumbered, but they’ve grown. Eight hundred members.” Brant whistled. “I’m sure most of them are perfectly nice folks.” Brant chuckled. “But two Marauders were stabbed in a roadhouse parking lot by the goddamn president of the S&B Abilene chapter about four months ago. He’s in jail, but bikers are never satisfied until they get their own kind of justice.
“S&B didn’t even have a presence here until three or four years ago. They sent a wave from Alabama and Mississippi to establish ground. They started flexin’ on all the other clubs in the area. Claiming they owned central Texas. Harassing the other clubs. You know the usual bullshit. ‘You can’t ride here. This is our town’. Most of the clubs thought S&B were Klan members.”
“Are they?”
“They wear lightning bolts.”
Brant sighed. “What is it you’re lookin’ for?”
“Mainly want to know if and when a meet is scheduled. Not just top patches. Whole clubs. A get together like that has the makin’s of an incident worthy of nationwide news.”
Brant looked around for a few seconds. “I can ask, but it’s up to him. If he goes, I’m gonna have to stipulate a cap on how long. Not about to leave him hangin’ in the wind forever.”
“That’s fair.” Russell leaned over far enough to pull his wallet out of his back pants pocket. “Three months.”
Brant shook his head. “No.”
“The Johns marker was worth somethin’, Brant. You know it and I know it.”
There was no arguing that. Getting Cannon Johns out of jail in three days and getting all charges dropped had taken some doing, even with Brand’s connections and money to grease the way judicially.
“Was worth a lot in good will, Russ. But not worth a man’s life. One month. If he starts feelin’ antsy about the situation, he’s out and that’s the end of it.”
“Alright.” He put a twenty on the table. “If he says yeah, you give him my number. Have him memorize it. Either I won’t hear from him for a month or I’ll get one phone call. Just one. There’ll never be any contact between him and me. And I suggest he not contact you either.”
Nodding his head, Brant said, “I wasn’t born yesterday either. Don’t forget the photo op on your way out.”
Russell glanced over at the little family. All four were watching him like a hawk. “Jesus,” he said under his breath.
“I’m on my way out. I’ll take the pic so you look your best.”
Russell gave Brant a look that would have shriveled another man’s balls. Brant laughed.