Buck felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise and turned to peer around the dark parking lot. He scanned the area, seeing only darkened outlines of the bikes and cars parked along the building but nothing that should have made his instincts kick in. Glancing over at Dice, he motioned for him and Gator to go around the side and check it out. Buck still didn’t like the bad feeling that was suddenly sitting on his chest—something wasn’t right about this drop.
Normally, prospects would be the lookouts but they were close to Tricky Dick territory and Choke had wanted his best guys on the perimeter. Buck didn’t blame the man because the Dicks were always fucking shit up and tonight was an important deal for the club. If this went down without a hitch then they’d have another supplier for weapons without having to travel to Laredo. Since it was a seven-hour ride full throttle that would be a damned good thing.
He scanned the lot again looking for whatever had made his hair raise. Dice came back around the building with a little shake of his head indicating they’d found nothing but Buck wasn’t relieved because his gut said something was up. The door of the building slammed into the wall as Choke and Shredder came stomping out, both men looking grim.
“Those stupid fuckers,” Choke said through his clenched teeth as he walked up to Buck ripping a pack of cigarettes out of his front pocket. He smacked one out of the pack and put it in his mouth before lighting it and taking a good long drag.
“What’s up?” Buck asked, feeling the tightness gripping his stomach begin to make his whole body tense.
“They raised the price,” Shredder grumbled, kicking at the rocks in the gravel parking lot.
“I thought the price was agreed upon already?”
“Yeah, I thought so too but that was before the Dicks got to them,” Choke said, shoving his cigarettes back in his pocket. “Those idiots offered ten G’s more than we did and now they want fifteen or they walk and sell to those bastards. Fuck.”
“Why would they offer that? At that price it’s gonna be hard to move them and make a profit,” Buck asked, glaring at the building and wondering what the hell those idiots were doing.
“Yeah, they don’t give a shit, man. You know they make their money by trafficking and pushing the heavy stuff. I’ve told you a thousand times we should try running heroin again.” Shredder ran a hand through his hair looking frustrated.
“No, I refuse to run that shit. You know how I feel about it, Shred. My sister died from using that stuff one fucking time and I won’t be party to killing some teenager scoring their first fix. If you have an issue with that you can bring it up at church but if you do, be aware I’m stepping down. I can’t stomach it.” Choke was dead serious about that shit too because his sister really had only done one dose of heroin her boyfriend had cooked up for her and she’d died less than an hour after it was injected from an overdose that sent her into convulsions.
“Fuck, I don’t want to be a part of that either. It’s just tempting. When we were running it we didn’t have cash flow problems. Like we do now.” Shredder said looking grim.
“We don’t have cash problems. We can get the cash and you know it but now that a lot of our business dealings are legit it takes more time to get it. The Dicks are just trying to take over parts of our territory,” Choke muttered.
“We’re not letting that happen but we need to decide what to do about these weapons. Are we going to pay their prices or walk away?” Buck asked, his hand waving in the air to indicate the building.
“Fuck. Only thing to do is buy them because we have the buyer set up already and we all know the mercenaries we are selling too aren’t going to be happy if we don’t bring them the goods on time like we promised. We will just have to explain to the men that profits aren’t going to be as much as they should be because of those Tricky Dick bastards.” Shredder was right and they both knew it because they really didn’t have the time to talk to their old supplier.
“So we cut profits and explain to the men in church.”
“It’s the only solution I see but if they’re trying to cause dissension in our ranks, this is a damned good start. Boys aren’t going to be happy if we cut their pay, damn it.” Choke looked grim as he spoke and turned to look out over the parking lot after taking another drag off his cigarette.
“So we cut the officers’ and senior members’ cut instead. That way the ones who aren’t solid with the club don’t feel shorted. Senior members won’t like it but most will understand,” Buck suggested.
“Damn, that’s not a bad idea.”
“What about Hammer’s group? You know they’ll try to cause problems.”
“Ha, let them try. As long as the boys have been paid they’re not going to care about that shit one bit and most of the senior members are loyal to me anyway. It’s only Patch and Jaded who are pissed they were pushed out and Ves who was Hammer’s pet roach when Hammer was alive that still think they can win back the club. It’s not going to happen.”
“True. Although we had a lot more cash flow, most of the members ended up with big issues and jail time under Hammer because he was an idiot and didn’t hide his tracks well.” Shredder laughed a little at that.
“My only question is how do we stop this from happening again? If those bustards think they can keep making us lose profits this way, they’re going to keep trying. How do we prevent that?” Buck considered that question for a long moment before an idea suddenly popped into his head and he grinned.
“We spread rumors that we are getting back into the heroin supply if they keep cutting into our bank roll this way. Five of our old drops have already asked if we’re going to be delivering those shipments again but I’ve told them no. If the Dicks think we’re going to take that back over they aren’t going to fuck with the weapons anymore. They know we can undermine their operation in a matter of days. They’re late on shipments and have more than once shorted some of the bags. Freak knows that if we offer that again he will be out, so he will stop coming at the weapon shipments. He’s a lot of things but he isn’t stupid.” Buck saw a grin spread across Choke’s face as he looked at him.
“I knew I promoted you for a reason all those years ago,” Choke chuckled.
“Yeah, that’s fucking genius. They will be so worried about their deals they won’t fuck with ours anymore. Damn Buck, where do you come up with this shit?” Shredder asked, shaking his head. Buck shrugged, unsure where his tactics came from, but he had always been good at working a problem to his favor and that was how he’d earned his position with the Diggers MC. Most of the club came to him when they had an issue that didn’t warrant church but needed a solution.
“Let’s go get this shit over with. Have the boys ready to hook up the loads. I want these guns on their way to the meet within the hour,” Choke muttered, holding cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and taking the last drag before tossing it to the gravel parking lot and stomping it out. Shredder followed him back into the building.
Buck signaled to Joker and the three prospects to move the trucks over near the loading bay. Joker shifted the truck into position while Buck let out the pent up growl that he’d been holding in. Damn it, he’d needed his portion of the cash from this run and it pissed him off that he wasn’t going to be getting even a fraction of the 3k he was supposed to.
He had plans for that money, damn it.