“Well,” Jack said, “you obviously heard about Lou.”

“Yeah, I’m real sorry about that, hon,” Sloane drawled. “I don’t want to say I told you so, but… aw, fuck it, yeah I do: I told you so.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack grumbled.

Sloane turned to me. “I told Jack from the time he got elected president, ‘If you want to go changin’ shit up in the MC, you better make sure Lou Shaw gets fitted for a pair of concrete shoes, or that sum’bitch is likely to come back and bite you in the ass.’ Which he did,” she said, looking at Jack accusingly.

“Moving on,” Jack said.

“Moving on to what?”

“I want the Midnight Riders back.”

“Well I want the Hope Diamond, darlin’, but I don’t see it droppin’ out of the sky any time soon, ‘less God decides he wants the best blow job ever.” Sloane turned back to me. “That reminds me of a joke I heard. What’s white ‘n creamy ‘n drips from the sky?”

She didn’t even pause long enough for me answer.

“The Comin’ of the Lord,” she said. “What’s white ‘n creamy ‘n drips from the sky, but not as much? The Second Comin’.”

Then she gave a combination giggle/cackle, and shook her head. “Oh Lord, I loooove that joke.”

I couldn’t decide if she was insanely sexual, or just insane. Probably both.

Definitely sacrilegious.

“Can we get down to business?” Jack asked, impatient.

She sighed and looked at Jack’s crotch again. “I wish we could get down to somethin’ else.”

Now Jack was getting pissed. “Sloane – ”

“Don’t worry,” she teased, winking at me. “I’ll share.”

Now Jack’s temper flared. “I didn’t call you here for a bunch of sex talk.”

“No, you apparently called me for a bunch ‘a bullshit,” she snapped, and suddenly she was all steel and razor blades. “I’m doin’ 1.5 million a month out of Phoenix in meth and coke, and I’m fightin’ off the Santa fuckin’ Muertes every step of the goddamn way. You show up on my doorstep with a fuckin’ weed operation – and you’re not even close to bein’ a major player in Cali, since the dispensaries can get their shit from Oregon and Washington state if they don’t wanna deal with your second-class hippie operation. So you’re basically a two-bit extra who got kicked out on his ass, and you want my help to topple the guy who done it, at substantial risk to me and my organization, even though you ain’t got nowhere near enough nickels to rub together to pay for my time. Not to mention the fact that you got handed your ass without a fuckin’ bullet fired, which means your weakness? It’s like blood in the water. If’n you do get rid of Lou and take back the Midnight Riders, the Santa Muertes are gonna come eat your ass like Great White sharks makin’ a buffet outta fat people. Now, did I miss somethin’ in there, or do you want to correct my first impression?”

God DAMN.

“Apparently we’re not just a weed operation anymore. Lou’s got a meth lab I didn’t know about,” he said.

“Well whoop-de-doo for Lou.”

Jack grimaced. “And there’s one more detail you might want to know about.”

“And what is that.”

“…I’m working for the DEA.”

WHAT?!

I looked over at Jack in alarm.

There was a split second of alarm on Sloane’s face – and then she pointed her gun right at Jack’s head. “You fuckin’ son of a bitch – ”

“HOLD ON,” Jack snapped. “I’m not wearing a wire. I don’t want you; I want Lou.”

“How the fuck do I know that?”

“If I wanted you, do you think I would tell you I was working for the DEA?”

She frowned. “I guess that makes sense, in a completely fucked up kind of way…” Then she stared daggers at Jack again. “You stupid son of a bitch – sayin’ shit like that is how you get yourself killed.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t see how I could exactly soft-sell that.”

“I suppose. Don’t do no good to sugarcoat a turd.” She looked at him sideways, then got a mischievous smile on her face. “I should make you strip buck nekkid to make sure you don’t have a wire.”

Bitch.

“No,” Jack said.

She glanced down at his crotch and cocked an eyebrow suggestively. “I’d give you a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to make it worth your while.”

FUCKING bitch –

But Jack still said, “No.”

Sloane huffed in frustration and looked back and forth between me and Jack. “I thought you two weren’t fuckin’.”

“Fiona’s got nothing to do with this,” Jack said. “If you and I are going to do business, then I want to keep it business.”

Sloane looked at me suspiciously. “What the hell’s she doin’ here, then?”

“Fiona was undercover looking for her cousin’s murderer when she and I hooked up. She thinks Lou probably did it.”

Sloane’s eyes narrowed, and she shifted the pistol to me. “Undercover for who?”

I can’t lie, my heart stopped for a second as I stared down the barrel of the Glock.

“Put the gun back on me, Sloane,” Jack ordered.

“Answer the damn question.”

“Put the gun back on me.”

He said it in a tone of voice that would not be disobeyed.

And, I have to say, goddamn sexy. Even though I hated him.

Sloane huffed and snarled, then pointed the gun at Jack again.

“Thank you,” Jack growled. “Fiona’s a PI in LA. She went undercover to find out who killed her cousin, and the DEA found out and blackmailed her into helping them.”

Sloane’s eyes grew wide. “That how they got to you?”

“More or less.”

“You were fuckin’ her, and you didn’t figure out she was a snitch?” she marveled, then laughed. “God, Jack, you never did have the sense God gave a box of paperclips.”

My blood started boiling. “It was only for 24 hours.”

Sloane smirked. “What, the fuckin’ or the snitchin’?”
            It was probably a good thing my .38 was on the bed, or I might have used it right then and there.

“The DEA blackmailed me Friday night, and Saturday night Lou backstabbed Jack.”

“Oh,” Sloane said sarcastically, “that makes it so much better.”

“Lou missed it, too,” Jack said. “Or she wouldn’t be alive.”

Sloane shook her head in wonder at Jack. “You really did it? You turned traitor?”

“I prefer to look at it like Lou backstabbed me, so now I’m going to return the favor. But I made a deal: the club is going to get a pass from the DEA, except for Lou, Eyeball, and anybody else at the top.”

It was a lie – or at least a fanciful daydream.

Sloane didn’t buy it either. “Riiiight. I hate to break it to you, Jack, but I think the DEA is takin’ advantage of your inherent gullibility.”

“I don’t care if half the club gets thrown in jail, as long as the rot gets cleared out.”

“Maybe you don’t know this, darlin’, but even if you pull the turd out of a shit sandwich, what you got left is a bunch of shitty bread. Not to mention you’re gonna have the Santa Muertes knockin’ on your door once you give Lou the boot.”

“The DEA wants them, too,” Jack said.

“The Santa Muertes?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, hell, who doesn’t the DEA want?” Sloane asked in exasperation.

“You, for one.”

“Riiiight.”

“The main focus is Lou, the Santa Muertes, and the Richards PD.”

Sloane’s eyes bugged out. “Ho-lee shit. They’re gonna try to take out Peters and clean house?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Well good luck with that. Talk about pullin’ turds out of a shit sandwich – that’s a twelve-foot-long Subway.” She paused. “Let’s say, just for a minute, that I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to help you with what is clearly the most fucked-up enterprise I ever heard of. What the hell do I get out of it?”

“With the Santa Muertes gone, a lot of territory in Southern California is going to open up.”

“…yeah…?” she said warily.

“And it’d be helpful to have an associate to watch your back north of LA, but who wouldn’t care to be involved in the business end of things.”

She frowned. “Why the fuck wouldn’t you just take it all for yourself? Not that you could, mind you…”

“What I told you three years ago still holds. If I get the Riders back, I’m staying out of the drug business for good.”

“Oh, Jack,” she sighed, and she got that misty-eyed nostalgia you see in people who haven’t completely gotten over their exes. “Still too damn dumb for your own goddamn good.”

“I’m tryin’,” he said with a smile.

Sloane’s face suddenly darkened, and she looked at Jack out of the corner of her eye. “Wait a minute… you said the main focus is Lou and the Santa Muertes and the PD. I don’t want to be the minor focus. Or any kind of goddamn focus, for that matter.”

“They’re not even after you.”

“The DEA’s not after me,” she said, like Pffff, yeah, RIGHT.

“Not this operation. I have no idea what their field office in Phoenix is cooking up.”

“Well, I’m sure your fuckin’ federales wouldn’t mind takin’ me along for the ride, too.”

“They won’t know about you. Not if we play this right.”

“And exactly how do you want to do that?”

“That’s kind of where we could use your tactical help,” Jack admitted.

“Jesus Christ. Not only do I got to save your ass, I got to wipe it, too,” Sloane griped – but she finally lowered her gun.