Tate

I hadn’t spoken to anyone in the MC about my legal situation. One unwritten rule in the club was that if anyone was incarcerated, the first contact always came from the person imprisoned, not from the other members.

This prevented prosecution and police from attaching any of the club members to a crime, and made applying the RICO act – a law that extends prison sentences to anyone involved in an ongoing criminal organization – more difficult. Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, or OMGs, were high on the federal government’s list of organizations to prosecute.

I was sure the prospect I was with at the time of my arrest had made the MC aware of my situation. To keep everything a surprise, I hadn’t contacted anyone regarding my release. I thought an unannounced visit to the clubhouse would be more interesting.

When I turned the corner, the shop’s open door came into view. I was surprised to see nearly half a dozen members gathered inside. Crip, the club’s president, was sitting on the work bench drinking a beer. At his side, Pee Bee, the Sergeant-at-Arms, stood.

Eyes widened as I rolled to a stop alongside Crip’s old-school hardtail Harley. Cholo, the club’s enforcer, hopped off his bike and turned to face me.

Smokey, a newer member of the club, but a man who had more character and heart than many of the original members, stood talking to P-Nut, the club’s skittish practical joker.

As soon as they realized who I was, their mouths fell open.

“What’s shakin’, motherfucker?” Pee Bee asked. “Looks like you lost some weight.”

“Maybe a pound or two,” I said. “Hell, all I’ve been doing is working out. Not much else to do in there besides that.”

I flipped the engine off and draped my arms over the handlebars. After scanning the group of men, I let out a dramatic sigh. “What’s with all the somber faces? Thought your pricks would be glad to see me.”

“Grab Meat a cold one, Smoke,” P-Nut said. “Man just did a couple of months in club fed, and he needs a drink.”

Smokey grabbed a beer from the fridge and handed it to me. “How long you been out?”

“Long as it took me to ride here,” I said. “Maybe an hour and a half. I’m guessing Tank told you what happened?”

P-Nut alternated glances between Crip and me a few times, and then fixed his gaze on Crip. “You telling him, or am I?”

“Telling me what?” I asked.

He looked at me, and then shifted his eyes to Crip. “Well?”

“I’ll tell him.” Crip slid off the edge of the workbench. After tugging at the bottom of his kutte, he took a long drink of beer and then sauntered the twenty feet to where I was parked. “This could be a really long story, but I’ll give you the short version.”

P-Nut paced back and forth behind him. Puffing on his cigarette as he made laps along the length of the workbench, he seemed anxious. With him it was hard to tell if there was a real concern, because he was always nervous about something.

The rest of the fellas faced me with their arms crossed over their chests.

During what I would expect to be a joyous occasion, it seemed everyone was nervous and subdued. I looked at each of the men. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were preparing to tell me about some horrific catastrophe that happened while I was away.

“Jesus.” I glanced at each of the men. “What’s going on?”

“Your prospect was an undercover ATF agent, and he set you up on that gun charge,” Crip said. “The men fighting in the bar were ATF agents, too. The whole thing was a set up. They knew you were a felon, and Tank was trying to get a gun in your hand, so they could arrest you for it. They thought it would--”

The words hit me like a punch in the gut. I hopped off the bike and stepped in front of him. To suggest that I was mentoring a dirty cop made me no better than the piece of shit I was mentoring.

“Hold on a fucking minute,” I retorted. “Tank’s the cousin of One-eyed Bob. He served this country as a Marine, and I’ve known him since he was ten fucking years old. He ain’t no cop. I don’t know who you’ve been--”

Crip raised his hands and turned his palms to face me. “Nobody’s accusing you of anything, Meat. I’ve talked to One-eyed Bob, and he had no idea either. The kid got back from Iraq and went to the ATF’s training center before he even came home. He was deep undercover. Hell, his family didn’t even know he was a cop. This information isn’t opinion, it’s fact.”

I had a difficult time believing that a kid I’d known for fifteen years was willing to set me up on a crime. “Are you sure he was a cop? Shit, Crip. That kid--”

P-Nut stepped between us, waving his arms frantically as he spoke. “Soon as I figured out he was an ATF agent, I kidnapped the prick. Locked him in a metal storage container outside of Temecula for a couple of months. I tortured that fucker every night. Finally, he gave it up. Told me everything. So, I made a deal with the motherfucker. He testified that the gun wasn’t yours and that he lied under oath. In trade for his testimony, you got set free, and I quit torturing that asshole.”

P-Nut was crazier than hell, and hearing that he’d kidnapped a suspected cop didn’t shock me at all. The thought of him being locked in a metal storage container in the fucking desert made my time in prison seem luxurious.

I looked at him in disbelief. “You kept him in a metal box in the middle of the fucking desert?”

“Edge,” he said. “On the edge of the desert. You know, by it, not in it.”

I looked at Crip. “This fucker’s serious, isn’t he?”

Crip’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “He sure as fuck is. If it wasn’t for brother ‘Nut, you’d still be in there. Hell, you’d have been convicted and sent up the river for five years or more.”

I looked at P-Nut and lifted my chin slightly. “Appreciate it, ‘Nut.”

“Wasn’t nothing.” He shrugged. “Hell, I enjoyed it.”

I scanned the men. “So, the fucker’s still alive?”

Crip nodded. “Yep.”

“Not for fucking long,” I said through my teeth.

“Nope,” P-Nut said. “We’re done with that fucker. Had to promise him when I let him go that there’d be no retaliation. I gave the prick a choice. Either get you out of prison, or I was going to kill him. He picked first deal.”

I looked at Crip.

“Don’t look at me,” he said. “‘Nut made the deal.”

“So, that’s it? We just forget it? I’ve been locked in that shit-hole for months. Hell, I paid thirty grand for an attorney.”

“This wasn’t an easy deal,” Crip said. “The fucking ‘Nut found out he was a cop, and he kidnapped him and hauled him out in the middle of the fucking desert. Hell, he had the fucker--”

“Edge,” P-Nut interrupted. “He was at the edge of the desert.”

Crip looked at P-Nut, let out a heavy sigh, and then shifted his eyes to me. “Edge,” he said. “He was at the edge of the desert. Hell, ‘Nut had the fucker in that storage container for over a month before any of us knew about it. He was getting ready to kill the prick, and his Ol’ Lady stopped him. If it wasn’t for that, you’d be long gone.”

I looked at P-Nut. “Ol’ Lady? You’ve got an Ol’ Lady? Since when?”

He shrugged. “While back. Since you been locked up. Remember Smudge? My neighbor?”

“The lesbian that lived beside you?”

“She ain’t a lesbian. And, yeah. We’re together now.”

I would have never guessed P-Nut could commit to be with anyone. Truthfully, it seemed like all the club’s principals had Ol’ Ladies. Well, everyone but me.

“I’ll be damned,” I said. “Never would have guessed that’d happen.”

“When the right woman comes along, a man’s a damned fool if he argues it,” he said.

“No argument from me on that.” I glanced at each of the men. “I met a chick in jail. She was cool as fuck.”

Everyone gave me the same look of confusion.

Pee Bee chuckled. “In jail? You met a chick in fucking jail?”

“She was one of the guards.”

Crip’s eyes thinned. “A fucking cop?”

“She’s not a cop,” I said. “She was a prison guard.”

“What’s the difference? She works for the feds. A cop’s a cop.”

“She helped me keep my cool in that place. I can tell you that much for sure.”

“Maybe you should send her a fucking card and a box of See’s candies,” he said with a laugh.

Convincing the men that Officer Madden was not a threat to the club’s safety, especially after a trusted prospect ended up being a cop, would be a tough sell. It didn’t matter. Regardless of my desire to do so, seeing her again would be highly unlikely and I needed to realize it.

She was a cop, and I was a convict and an outlaw biker. Despite my attraction to her while I was locked up, we’d never spend a moment together outside the walls of the jail. It certainly wasn’t my hope to continue along this path, but it was a realistic outlook on what the future held.

I decided a change in subject matter was necessary to clear the air. “So, other than Tank being a fucking cop and P-Nut shacking up with his gay neighbor, has anything else happened?”

“Not much,” Crip said with a laugh. “Same old shit.”

Tank being a cop and setting me up on a crime hung heavily on my mind. I’d been deceived, and I didn’t like it one bit. I finished my beer, tossed the bottle in the trash, and turned around. “How’d we find out Tank was a cop?”

Smokey looked at the men, and then cleared his throat. “Remember the cop that arrested Crip for murdering Whipple’s brother?”

Him and three or four other cops stormed into the clubhouse one day while we were in the middle of a meeting. After demanding that Crip surrender, he arrested him at gunpoint and took him to jail on murder charges.

The charges were later dropped and Crip was released, but the cop – and his attitude – weren’t something I’d soon forget. His arrogance preceded him, and he looked like he belonged on one of my book covers, not in a police station.

“Smart mouthed fucker that pulled out his gun here in the shop?” I asked. “Looked like he ought to be managing The Gap in San Diego?”

Smoke nodded.

“Yeah, I remember him, why?”

“I took Tank as a prospect when you got arrested.” Smokey said. “The fucker was trying to get on my good side and pump me for information. He set up a mock fight at a diner one day with another undercover ATF agent. Made it look like the other cop was trying to steal my bike. Hell, the bastard had me fooled. Then, one night, the cop that arrested Crip came by my house and told me Tank was an ATF agent. Explained how he set you up on the gun charge. Handed you the gun while he had ATF agents waiting to arrest you. The whole thing was a set up.”

The entire thing was starting to sound like an embellished scene out of one of my biker books. I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at Smokey in disbelief. “That asshole cop just came to your house and said, ‘Hey, there’s something I think you should know. Tank’s a cop and he set Meathead up on a gun charge.’”

“Pretty much, yeah.” He motioned toward P-Nut. “I told ‘Nut, and the next thing we know, Tank goes missing. ‘Nut kept his ass in that metal box for two months before we knew what really happened.”

I glanced at P-Nut, and then at the other men. Each of them gave me a reassuring look. Uncertainty sank into the pit of my stomach.

We were a club that wasn’t involved in an ongoing criminal enterprise like drugs, extortion, or prostitution. We did, however, spend a fair amount of time protecting our turf, and standing up for people who were being victimized by others – and those actions were often criminal.

There were far too many cops involved in the club’s recent activities for my comfort.

I looked at Crip. “Sounds to me like we’ve got a few too many cops in the mix, Boss.”

“Tank’s gone for good,” he said. “That other cop? I don’t know what to think about that prick. He keeps showing up, but nothing ever comes of it.”

“He’s a fucking cop, Crip. You said it earlier. A cop’s a cop.”

“I second that,” P-Nut said.

Everyone else chimed in with an agreement of some sort.

Therein was my answer. I didn’t like it, but it wasn’t something I could argue. I could thank Officer Madden for her hospitality, but going further than that wasn’t something that was in my – or the club’s – best interest.