Leslie
2000, Fort Lauderdale (Seven Months Before the Execution)
Leslie Cowan’s head pounded as she squinted at the mailboxes in the rundown neighborhood. It was New Year’s Day, and she had celebrated last night with a combination of too much cheap wine and watered down beer. Her stomach churned as the bright Florida sun burned a hole through her windshield and caused her head to ache even more. Not even her darkest sunglasses could ward off the brightness that served as a glaring reminder of last night’s debauchery. She’d woken late this morning to find herself in an unknown bed with an unfamiliar and extremely heavy arm draped over her.
She shook her head as if to erase the disgust she felt with herself. What was his name? She couldn’t remember and realized it didn’t matter. She would never see him again.
The neighborhood she now drove through was old, and most of the homes had seen better days. She could see some residents still made an effort, but unfortunately, most of their attempts at a neat and tidy yard were thwarted by the person living next door. Overgrown lawns, junk filled porches, and cars on blocks must be sinking these home values. Why doesn’t somebody call code enforcement?
Oh, well, not her problem. She thought back to last week, and how a friend had casually mentioned that her boyfriend’s father knew some guy who used to belong to a motorcycle gang. Leslie had heard about a big magazine that would be dedicating an issue to celebrity bikers later this year. That rumor, combined with her friend’s knowledge of someone who’d actually been in a biker gang, sparked an idea—what if she could impress the big magazine with an exposé on a real gang? Even if the special issue rumor wasn’t true, she could certainly get some notice with a true-life biker gang article.
Her heart sank when she found the address she was looking for. It was one of the worst on the block.
She’d been surprised when William Jackson, the supposed ex-gang member, suggested she meet him on New Year’s Day. Most people liked to reserve today for recovering from the previous night’s festivities. She would’ve liked that, too, but she was never one to turn down an opportunity, regardless of how strange it was. If he was up for a conversation, then so was she, even if her head and stomach disagreed.
She pulled up to the curb and let out a big sigh. There was so much junk in the yard that she could barely see a pathway to the front door.
Reluctantly, she gathered her things and got out of the car, sure to lock it behind her. It wasn’t the best or newest car, but it was all she had. Shouldering her purse and her bravado, she walked as confidently as she could to the porch and rang the bell. There was no sound. It must be broken. A dog barked in the distance. She knocked on the weathered front door and turned her back to it as she surveyed the obstacle course of trash she’d just made her way through. A beat-up old car was in the driveway. The rest of the yard was full of everything from an old kitchen sink to stacks of tires. Her eyes slowly scanned the yard, taking inventory of bicycle parts, an oven door, several toilet seat lids, and an orange beanbag chair. It reminded her of a sad and deflated pumpkin.
“You must be the reporter,” she heard a male voice say from behind her. She swung around and was at a loss for words. This couldn’t be William Jackson, the old gang member. She was staring at a very tall, very handsome young man with bright blue eyes, full lips, and shoulder length curly black hair. She couldn’t gauge his age, either late teens or early twenties. He had the kind of classic good looks that belonged on the front of the magazine she was trying to impress. He was wearing jeans and a faded denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The tops of his forearms and what she could see of his upper chest were heavily tattooed. He appeared slender but solidly built. He needed a shave and a haircut.
She liked what she saw.
“Mr. Jackson?” She was immediately aware of her disheveled appearance. After climbing out of John Doe’s bed that morning, she’d only had a few minutes to clean herself up in his bathroom before coming straight to the interview.
“No. You want my uncle.” He stepped aside and waved her inside the house, silently shutting the door behind her.
She was surprised the inside wasn’t as horrible as the outside. It smelled like cigarettes and bacon, and even though it was filled with outdated and worn furnishings, it was tidy.
She immediately zeroed in on a man sitting on the couch. He was wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt that said “drop dead.” He had clear tubes draped over each ear, and they were obviously feeding him some much-needed oxygen. She started to walk toward him to extend her hand when she stopped. He was smoking a cigarette. That seemed awfully dangerous.
“This is Uncle Will. Don’t let the oxygen tank and cigarettes scare you. If he hasn’t blown us up by now, he probably won’t.”
Leslie gave Mr. Cute Nephew a half smile. He took this opportunity to extend his own hand.
“I’m Nick Rosman.” He saw the question in Leslie’s eyes as she extended her own hand. “Uncle Will isn’t my real uncle. My mom used to date his younger brother. I grew up calling them both “uncle.” Paul still lives here with him, but he’s currently doing his third stint in rehab. Prescription drugs and alcohol. I’m just here to help out till he comes home.”
As was his general practice, he’d decided it was best to tell her some things up front and avoid the chitchat and questions that would inevitably follow. He wasn’t one to make small talk. He’d noticed the interest in her eyes at the front door and known immediately this was one piece of snatch he wouldn’t be chasing. And if it was chasing him, it certainly wouldn’t catch him. He could spot trash a mile away.
“So your mom dates Mr. Jackson’s brother, Paul?”
“Dated,” Nick emphasized as he waved her toward a chair. “They broke up years ago. But like I said, I grew up around them. I still do what I can to help.”
After Leslie seated herself and pulled her notepad and pencil out of her bag, Nick offered her something to drink. She politely declined, and after introducing herself and quickly thanking William Jackson for agreeing to talk to her, the interview began. Nick parked himself on the arm of another chair and only half listened as his adopted uncle shared stories of his younger years in the motorcycle gang that had been headquartered in a rundown old motel off State Road 84.
Nick had been hearing these stories since he was a kid. Uncle Will considered this bygone era to be his glory days and would occasionally brag to the boy that he was the one whose testimony helped put Jason “Grizz” Talbot on Florida’s Death Row. Nick had heard it all. Or at least thought he had. His ears perked up when he heard his uncle reply to the reporter’s last comment.
“That name. Jason Talbot. That’s kind of familiar.” Leslie’s brows drew together in concentration. “An excavating company found the remains of a woman last year who was linked to him or something. I can’t exactly remember. It made its way around the reporters’ gossip circuit, but it seemed nobody wanted to touch it. I don’t know if they were afraid to or it just wasn’t newsworthy. I can’t even remember her name.”
“That would’ve been Moe,” Jackson said casually as he took a short drag on his cigarette.
“You knew the woman they found?” Leslie sat up straight.
“Knew her in the most intimate sense. If you know what I mean.” William Jackson winked at her, a glint in his eyes.
Leslie leaned closer. Now this was getting interesting.
“This gang, this ‘club’ you’re talking about. You’re telling me it was run by a guy who’s now on death row? Jason Talbot went to prison for having this motorcycle gang?”
“He went to prison for a lot of things.” Jackson gave her a serious look. “He was the most evil son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever come across. I watched him snap a woman’s neck like it was nothing and toss her in the swamp. It was my testimony on the stand that helped put him on death row. He’s still there. Why don’t you try and get an interview with him? You want a real biker story, that’s who you wanna talk to. Or better yet, you should probably talk to his wife. You know, he kidnapped her when she was fifteen. Forced her to marry him. Well, at least she used to be his wife. Ended up marrying one of the other gang members before Grizz was even sentenced. I think they still live right here in South Florida somewhere.”
Leslie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was chomping at the bit to get this interview over with so she could get home and fire up her computer to see what she could find on Jason Talbot. She didn’t remember hearing anything about him being a biker when she heard about Moe’s remains being found. Then again, she’d never asked or tried to dig deeper. This changed everything.
She ended the interview as quickly and politely as she could. She asked Mr. Jackson if she could come back if she needed to ask him some more questions. She was certain she wouldn’t have to. She knew she’d be able to find everything she needed on the Internet.
**********
Less than a week later, she found herself sitting in the same chair across from William Jackson as he sucked on a half-smoked cigarette. Nick was perched in the same spot as before. This time he was shirtless, but Leslie barely noticed. She was infuriated, disappointed, and maybe even a little desperate.
“Nothing.” She scowled. “I can’t find a damn thing on anybody or anything that had to do with this Jason Talbot. I’ve scoured the Internet for old news reports, and I can’t find anything about a girl kidnapped in the seventies. Well, that’s not true. There were lots of missing girls, but none I’ve been able to link to a biker gang kidnapping. I’ve typed the name ‘Grizz’ into every search engine there is, and all I get are pictures of grizzly bears and off-brand hunting supplies. I’ve typed in his real name and I get online phone books for every Jason Talbot in the country. Obviously, none of them are him. I’ve even tried the gang’s name, and some scary-looking cult websites come up. I’ve tried the courts. No record of a trial. If it’s there, it’s been hidden or sealed. It’s almost as if this man doesn’t really exist.”
She narrowed her eyes then and gave William Jackson a suspicious look, waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, she added, “I mean, he’s obviously real. I found the prison where he’s at, so I know a Jason Talbot is on death row. I was able to talk to someone there, but they told me he was sentenced to death because of a carjacking gone bad. Yes, he obviously murdered some guy whose car he stole, but the man I talked to at the prison also told me he had no biker gang affiliation they’d ever heard of.” She crossed her arms. “So right now, I’m guessing you’ve had a lot of time to sit on your couch, and I’m thinking your need for oxygen has given you hallucinations, Mr. Jackson. You were never part of this big, bad motorcycle gang, were you? It’s all in your head. Jason Talbot exists. But his gang never did.”
Nick was surprised at the reporter’s anger and accusations. She must have been living under a rock to never have heard of Jason “Grizz” Talbot. Nick knew he existed for sure because he knew Grizz’s old gang was still out there. They no longer wore the jackets, and they didn’t let themselves be known like they used to, but they were still underground and an extremely well organized group of criminals.
And if Nick had to guess right, Talbot was still calling the shots from prison. Come on—how simple would it be to have some nobody office-worker on the bottom of the prison hierarchy lie about his history? Too easy.
Nick knew that not only Grizz’s gang but rival gangs existed because he’d been trying his damnedest to get in with them. There weren’t many of them left, but they were out there. He wasn’t surprised his uncle had bragged about helping to put Grizz in prison. A smart person would’ve been scared of Talbot’s retaliation, but not Uncle Will. When Nick had asked him about it after Leslie’s first visit, his uncle had told him, “He don’t want vengeance on me. His attorney told me to tell the truth about him. He said Grizz wanted it that way. Whatever his reason was, he was looking to go to prison. I was just following an order by telling them what I saw that night.”
Nick had hinted to his uncle about wanting to get in with the right people, but Will wouldn’t have it. He knew Uncle Will probably only had to make some calls and Nick would be given a chance to prove himself through whatever initiation ritual they required. But his adopted uncle didn’t want that for Nick. Nick was bright and could make a living the legal way.
Little did William Jackson know that Nick had no intention of earning his way as a respectable American citizen. He would prove himself. He didn’t know how, but he would get someone to notice him.
Nick’s thoughts were interrupted when his uncle started laughing. Uncle Will threw his head back, sat up to slap his knee.
“Couldn’t find anything on Grizz, huh? Doesn’t surprise me one damn bit. He was always a clever bastard, owned more than half this city. Prob’ly still does. You have any old newspaper or police contacts? You ask anybody about him?”
Leslie stiffened and raised her chin.
“Of course. I’ve asked a few people I know. They all say the same thing. His name sounds familiar, but they can’t remember much about him. It was a long time ago. What? Fifteen years at least?”
“And you believe them?” Uncle Will snorted. “Like I said, it don’t surprise me one bit that you can’t get anybody to talk. They’re still afraid of him. Were you raised here, Miss Cowan? In South Florida?”
“No. I’ve been here two years. I was raised up north. Why?”
“Because you go up to any stranger on the street, ask them if they lived here in the seventies or eighties, and say the name ‘Grizz.’ They’ll remember. They may not wanna talk about it, but they’ll remember.”
She rolled her eyes. “Is there anything else, Mr. Jackson? Anything else you can tell me before I decide whether or not it’s worth my time to follow your idiotic suggestion that I interview strangers off the street?”
“Yeah, there’s something else. Why don’t you go talk to the woman he used to be married to? Oh, wait, that’s right. You can’t because you don’t know her name. You’re not even sure she exists.”
Jackson sat up to reach for his cigarette, which was smoldering in an ashtray on the coffee table. Leslie stared at him without saying anything as he brought the cigarette to his lips and inhaled. He blew the smoke out slowly, then leaned back.
“The new husband used to be called Grunt. He worked at some fancy architectural firm but quit after the trial. The trial you can’t seem to find. You must be one helluva reporter.” He sneered. “I hear Grunt has his own company now. Dillon and Something, somewhere in Fort Lauderdale.”
This caught Nick’s attention. Dillon? He knew Keith “Blue” Dillon wasn’t an architect. They must be related. Interesting.
Jackson watched as Leslie stiffened at the insult and wrote something in her notebook.
“And because I’m feeling mighty generous I’ll even throw you a bone,” he said. “Rumor had it that when Grizz’s wife married Dillon, she was pregnant with Grizz’s baby. Heard it was a girl. She’d be about what, fourteen or fifteen by now? If you can’t find Dillon, maybe you’ll find something through hospital records. Who knows.”
Leslie stood to leave, but not before she asked one more question.
“Why, Mr. Jackson? Why did you say you’d talk to me? Why are you sharing all this? If this guy really is as evil as you say he is, why risk telling me if there’s a chance he’ll send somebody after you?”
He looked at her seriously. “I’ve got nothing better to do. And besides, I know you’re too smart to let anybody know you actually talked to me. Aren’t you, Miss Cowan?”
The way he said the last sentence sent a chill up Leslie’s spine. Had she been too casual with this man? She’d interviewed worse criminals than him. How dangerous could a shriveled-up old man attached to an oxygen tank be?
But what if it was true and he had belonged to a biker gang? Just because she couldn’t find anything didn’t mean they didn’t exist, and if she was going to be honest with herself, she was even more intrigued now that she’d found out all of this could really be true and someone had gone to extreme measures to make sure it was erased. This could be one hell of a story if she could just get some facts to substantiate even a few of the tales William Jackson had told her the last time she was here.
The one thing she hadn’t told Jackson was that she wasn’t being exactly truthful about talking to newspaper or police contacts. She didn’t really have any. Leslie had pissed off all the wrong people when she’d first started out in Fort Lauderdale. She’d always been the type to not care. As far as she was concerned, even bad publicity was some publicity. Yes, she was making a name for herself, but not in a good way.
She’d find out more about this Grizz person and she would write her article, have it published. And they could all kiss her ass on their way to hell.
She nodded at the man and headed for the front door. She was closing the door behind her when she heard William Jackson’s voice call out:
“Don’t let the oxygen tank fool you, Miss Cowan. Call me idiotic again, and I’ll strangle the life out of that pretty neck of yours. After all, I’ve got nothing better to do.”