Brawn

 

“Hey. Brawn?” The cautious voice behind me cut straight through the work noise in the shop. I knew something was wrong before I knew who it was. I looked up from my work and saw Bobby standing there. Bobby had been one of the two kids Cory and I had been training.

 

“Bobby, what’s up?” I walked over and patted him on the back.

 

“I need to talk to you.” He kept his voice low. I could barely hear him.

 

“Okay, let’s step in to the back so we can get some privacy and some quiet,” I told him.

 

We walked into the breakroom and closed the door. It served as my personal makeshift office. I gestured to the breakroom table for him to sit so we could talk.

 

“What’s going on?” I asked as I sat across from him.

 

“Well, you know, I left to go work for Lucas Kelly,” he started.

 

“Right, and I told you what I thought about him, but whatever. How are things going?”

 

The longhaired young man looked up at me with fear in his eyes. “Bad,” he said.

 

I knew the look. It was the look of someone who had seen something they shouldn’t have, or who had been threatened by someone. In Bobby’s case, I knew it was likely to have been both.

 

“What do you mean? How bad?”

 

“Before I tell you anything, Brawn, I’m sorry. I didn’t know where else to go. I didn’t want to go to the cops. I didn’t know if I could go to James or anyone else at the MC, so I came to you.” The kid was shaking.

 

“I know it’s not easy, but if you know something about Lucas Kelly, you need to let me know,” I said with a touch of urgency in my voice to try to get the boy to man up a little bit.

 

“Okay.” He took a couple of deep breaths to gather his thoughts and muster up his nerve.

 

I waited to hear him say he saw Kelly burying a dead body on the jobsite or something, but what he had to tell me wasn’t nearly that dramatic.

 

“I walked in on a deal between Mr. Kelly and the local head of the mob,” he said in a panicked voice.

 

“Come again?” I said, turning my ear toward him.

 

“You know, the mob. Mr. Kelly is involved with the mob, and I walked in on a deal. They were in the office, and I didn’t realize anyone was in there but him. I went in to clock out, and they got really quiet. I mean, the air in there just stopped. I couldn’t even breathe,” he said, rambling.

 

“Okay, I got it. It was tense. What happened next? How do you know the guy he was talking to was with the mob?” I asked, trying to move him along.

 

“Mr. Kelly told me he’d handle clocking me out and that I should get out of there if I knew what was good for me. But I recognized the guy immediately. He was one of the guys my dad talked to on the deal with Bourbon Jack a couple of years ago. I’d never forget a face like that,” he told me.

 

I laughed. Bourbon Jack was one of the old timers. He got his name because he drank way too much and always got into trouble. He’d crossed a man named Carlisle who ran a gambling ring. He was connected, but unless things had changed, he’d never been the head of anything. Bobby’s father was Shine, one of our cleaners. The story was that he’d cleared Bourbon Jack’s debt simply by talking to Carlisle. Everyone believed he’d put the fear of God in the man.

 

“It’s not funny, Brawn. I’m lucky they let me off the lot alive.” His panic was reaching a fever pitch.

 

“Calm down, son. First off, I’m pretty sure Carlisle isn’t the local head of the mob. He’s connected, and he ran that gambling ring Bourbon Jack helped us break up. That’s it. Now, thanks to your dad, you really don’t have to worry about him. I’m surprised he didn’t storm out of there once he saw who you were. From what I’ve heard, your dad scared him pretty bad.” I laughed again.

 

“Well, if he’s talking to Kelly, I’m sure he’s not just small fries,” Bobby argued.

 

“Good point, and you’re right. Kelly doesn’t operate small. So, you have a job for the MC now.”

 

“What? Don’t you have to go through James first before you put me on anything?” he asked, practically shaking in his boots.

 

“Not this,” I said. “James will agree with me on this one. You need to go back to work tomorrow and try to find out all you can about the deal between Kelly and Carlisle.”

 

He shook his head. “I didn’t tell you everything. There’s more.”

 

I sat back while I let him tell me the rest of his story.

 

“After I left the office, Mr. Kelly came out and called me to the bottom of the steps in front of the trailer. He told me if I said anything about it, he’d have me taken care of.”

 

“He did what?” I asked.

 

“You know, he threatened to have me killed, Brawn.”

 

“Go home,” I told him flatly. “Go home and don’t say anything to your dad.”

 

“What are you going to do?” he asked as I stood up and unlocked the door to the breakroom.

 

“I’m going to handle Kelly,” I told him. “You get home. If your dad asks, today went fine. Tell him you stopped by to see how I was doing and to see if I needed any help.”

 

“You want me to lie to my dad?” he asked from his chair. He still hadn’t gotten up.

 

“Well, if you want, you can stay here. I’ll get Cory or one of the girls to hang back with you until I’m done,” I offered, using my tone to make it sound more like a punishment than an offer to help.

 

“No, I’m good. I’ll go home.” His thin frame rose shakily from the table.

 

“Not a word, you got it? I don’t want anyone showing up and jeopardizing what I’m doing,” I told him on the way out.

 

“Not a word. Got it.” He walked away, toward his motorcycle. He hopped on, cranked it up, and roared off into the afternoon.

 

I turned to Cory. “I’ve got some business to handle. Close it down for me if I’m not back on time.”

 

“Got it,” he said. “Everything okay?”

 

“Will be soon.” I adjusted my kutte and walked outside to my motorcycle. Maria was driving my car so she had an easier way to and from class instead of taking the bus every day. We had taken care of that after she talked to one of her old friends.

 

I grabbed my helmet and put it on as I straddled my old Harley. Riding her more the last few days had felt great. I felt free for the first time in years. She roared to life underneath me and I revved the engine up a few times, listening to her growl, feeling her rumble beneath me.

 

I pulled out of the parking lot and raced over to the jobsite where I’d been working for Kelly before running off with his daughter. I felt guilty for going to see him without saying anything to Maria first, like I was sneaking around behind her back or something, but it was MC business, as far as I was concerned.

 

The bike roared onto the jobsite as the last few of his workers called it a day. I drove right up to the trailer where his office was and killed the engine. I climbed off the bike and walked up the steps, but I took a moment before opening the door. I was going in alone. I was handling MC business without talking to my brother or anyone else first. I justified it to myself because it was personal.

 

I slung the door open and walked in.

 

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Kelly said in mock surprise, sitting alone behind his desk. “If it isn’t good old Mickey ‘Brawn’ Johnson. I haven’t seen you since you ran off with my daughter. How is she, by the way?”

 

“You ran her off. You acted like you were glad to get rid of her. I’m not here to talk to you about that,” I said as I advanced on him.

 

“Then, tell me, why are you here?” he asked.

 

Just then, I heard sirens coming up on the jobsite. I narrowed my eyes at him and clenched my fists.

 

“Now don’t do anything you don’t want to have to explain to the police, Mickey,” Kelly cautioned me, speaking slowly and in an almost fatherly tone.

 

“You set me up,” I growled.

 

“Maybe I did. Maybe you set yourself up by coming back here. You shouldn’t have run off with my daughter, Mickey. You fucked up when you did that.”

 

Right at that time, the door opened again and two officers barged in, guns trained on me. “Mickey Johnson?” one of them asked.

 

“That’s me,” I said.

 

One officer holstered his gun. He grabbed my arms and pulled them behind my back, where he quickly worked to cuff me.

 

“You’re under arrest,” he said.

 

“For what?”

 

“For the kidnapping of my daughter, you piece of shit,” Kelly yelled in mock rage. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about his daughter being kidnapped. He was just playing it up for the arresting officers.

 

“That’s funny. I’m sure if you talk to her, she’ll tell you a different story,” I said, but I stopped myself from saying anything else. I didn’t want to give the officers anything to work off, and I certainly didn’t want Lucas Kelly to know where she was in case he was inclined to try something stupid.

 

“Mr. Johnson, you have the right to remain silent,” the first officer said, as if reminding me to keep my mouth shut so I didn’t say too much in front of my former boss.

 

“This isn’t over yet,” I told Kelly as the officers led me out of the office and back down the stairs.

 

“Officers, that sounded like a threat,” I heard him calling out behind us.

 

The officers didn’t seem to notice as I was led over to the car and shoved into the backseat.

 

As they backed up and turned around, I stared at my bike.

 

“Hey, can someone come and impound my bike?” I asked from the backseat as we started to pull away.

 

“Why would we need to do that?” one of them asked.

 

“So it doesn’t get vandalized or worse while it’s sitting at this jobsite. I don’t trust that man,” I explained.

 

“It’s not typical procedure to impound your vehicle if it wasn’t involved with what we’re picking you up for,” the officer informed me.

 

“Great. If anything happens to it,” I started.

 

“That would be unfortunate,” one of the cops finished for me.

 

“Yeah, very unfortunate.” I rode down to the station in silence after that. I had botched the attempt to kidnap Maria. I didn’t think it through before I did it. It was pretty much on impulse. Then, when I tried to handle actual MC business by listening to Bobby and then trying to stand up for him, I had botched that, as well. The more I thought about it, the more it felt like I had been set up.

 

Why hadn’t Bobby gone to his dad first? Shine would have made damn sure the situation with Carlisle had been handled, again. If Carlisle had even been there. I was starting to think the whole thing had been an elaborate hoax to land me in the back of the cop car.

 

“All right, before we go in, do you have anything on you that we need to know about?” one of the cops asked me, shoving me into the side of the car once we got to the station.

 

“Nothing,” I said.

 

“No guns, drug paraphernalia, candy wrappers, nothing, huh?” he asked again. I could hear him nodding his head and smirking.

 

“Man, I told you. Nothing.”

 

He frisked me quickly and, satisfied, he hauled me into the building.

 

“I need my phone call as soon as possible,” I told him.

 

“Well, I guess we ought to put a rush on it.”

 

I knew if I told him it was so I could get my lawyer down there, I never would have gotten the call.

 

“I need to let my girl know I’m not coming home tonight. You know, the one Lucas Kelly says I kidnapped. The one who opened a woodworking shop with me,” I said.

 

“You’ll get your call as soon as you’re processed,” he said as he shoved me into a holding cell and slammed the door.

 

I didn’t say anything as I watched the cop walk away. I was pretty sure there were only two other people who knew where I was, besides myself – Kelly and Bobby. I would have put money on Bobby’s involvement.