I awoke early the next morning and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. I had thought I would surprise him in bed. As I worked on chopping up vegetables for a fresh omelet, I remembered that I hadn’t touched base with Jeremiah and reached for my phone, quietly retrieving the five-dollar bill from the pants I had left in the bathroom floor and dialing the number written on the currency.
“Jeremiah speaking.”
“It’s me, Janessa.”
“About time.”
“I know. It’s been crazy. D insisted that I stay with him after Ringo was murdered, and I wasn’t able to get to you for a while.”
“For fuck’s sake, Janessa. You are staying at his house?”
“It’s okay, Jeremiah. He knows what I’m doing. D didn’t kill my father.”
“What do you mean he knows? Get the hell out of there, Janessa!”
“I’ve got it under control.”
There was a long hesitation on the line before Jeremiah spoke again.
“Please tell me you haven’t compromised your position by letting D get to you. I hope you aren’t sleeping with him. He’s a vicious thug, Janessa.”
“You let me worry about that. Just listen to what I have to tell you.”
I told him about what had unfolded so far while he mostly listened, asking a pertinent question here and there. Finally, he told me what I didn’t know.
“Things are too hot there, Janessa. I need for you to pull out.”
“I can’t. I won’t. I am still going to find out who killed my father.”
“I know who killed your father. Roberto Suarez. We have it on videotape.”
“What? When did this happen?”
“Anonymous tip. Someone sent it in.”
“So, after all this time, someone just decided to send you a video of my father’s murder?”
“Apparently so.”
“For what reason?”
“I don’t know. Now that you’ve told me about the situation with D, I’m guessing something happened that made him a liability.”
“Not just him, but there are others. We’ve found instances in the books where Roberto Suarez was making loans to a number of folks and writing it off as day labor payments.”
“Money that went out but didn’t come back in, at least not to the club. Smart.”
“Exactly.”
“Then you already knew it was Roberto who killed your father.”
“No. I knew he had something to do with it, but hadn’t been able to confirm it yet. I didn’t know if it was him or one of the others we are linking to him one by one.”
“You need to get out of there, Janessa. You have what you came for. We’ll arrest this guy and try him for his crime.”
“No, not yet.”
“What do you mean, not yet? This is the whole reason you went in there, and we have it now. What is going on in there, Janessa? What are you not telling me?”
“Just wait, Jeremiah. I’ll give you more. I’ll hand you enough to put Roberto Suarez and a good number of others away for so long they’ll not see a day on the outside before they’re old and gray.”
“I don’t want a few bad seeds, Janessa. I want Damian Diaz and the whole corrupt lot of them.”
“I can’t give you D.”
“I’m becoming well aware of that, Janessa. I’m hearing things I don’t like. You’re too close to him, and he’s not what he seems.”
“No. He is not what he seems to you. I know what he is and what he is capable of, but I also know he is something more than that. He’s not a bad person.”
“Not a bad person? For the love of Christ, Janessa! What kind of brainwashing has he done to you? The man is a drug dealer, a killer, a thug. Don’t delude yourself.”
“Look, if you don’t want to help me anymore, that is fine, but don’t arrest Roberto just yet. Give me a bit of time and I’ll give you more, enough to make sure you have enough to stick in case the video isn’t enough. You know how easily things get tossed out, and you’ve got nothing but a tape received from a dubious source. The prosecutor will be all over it to get it discredited.”
“Fine. You have two weeks, no more. After that, I’ve got enough to come in there and clear house of a good many members. I’ll take down every one of them I can get.”
“I have to go. We’ll talk again soon.”
I hung up the phone without waiting for an answer. Looking up, I saw D standing quietly in the doorway, squinting at me as if trying to determine what I was up to. He didn’t speak at first as I met his gaze.
“Want some breakfast?” I asked, finishing up the omelet I had been working on as I talked to Jeremiah.
“I’m more interested in the conversation you were having. That was your DEA contact?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I don’t think it is something we should discuss.”
“Oh, you don’t, huh? I happen to think very differently.”
“You’re going to have to trust me, D.”
“Trust you? You’ve no idea how hard I try, but when I overhear bits and pieces of a conversation about taking down members of my club and perhaps even myself, it is a little hard just to put blind trust in you.”
“He has evidence that Roberto Suarez killed my father. He wants to take him down and pull me out. I needed to give him something to hold him off until we can finish flushing out those members of the club who are trying to take over. We’ll hand them to him on a silver platter, and he’ll be happy with it. You’ll be safe from them and from him.”
“Do you really believe that, Janessa? Surely you aren’t so naïve as to think that handing over a few members who have crossed me is going to satisfy the DEA. I have my own ways of dealing with them. I won’t be giving anyone up to the authorities.”
“If you don’t, they are going to keep coming after you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. They are going to keep coming after me regardless of who you or I hand over to them. I’m the one they want, not a bunch of low level wannabes.”
“Jeremiah will listen to me. If we give him these guys, he will back off you.”
“Janessa, you just don’t want to believe the truth. I’ve never told you that I’m a good guy. I’m not. I’m not a good guy at all. You don’t know the half of what kind of things I’m into or what I’ve done. You see this? You see this tattoo?”
I nodded as he pointed to the dollar sign on his chest. I remembered the first time I had seen it. It had seemed trite, tacky. Something told me that I was about to learn a lot more about its origin and that knowledge would somehow change my perception of the symbol and D forever.
“It’s a reminder to myself that I once chose money over my brother, my best friend. I didn’t have his back when I should have, and he died. I put this near my heart. It may seem stupid to you, but when I look into the mirror, it reminds me that I was once in a place that wasn’t good for me or anyone around me. I got to where I am by being cold and ruthless, and I can’t change that.”
“I think you spend a lot of time trying to convince yourself that you are that way, but you really aren’t.”
“If that is what you think, then you don’t know me at all, Janessa.”
“Perhaps I know you much better than you are willing to give me credit for.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. Bottom line is that I’m not giving up anyone in my organization to the DEA, no matter what you think.”
“D, you have to.”
“Have to? I have to? I don’t have to do anything, Janessa. Even if I was willing to give up my people to your friends in the DEA, don’t you understand what would happen?”
“They would be prosecuted for their crimes and you’d be safe from any harm they might have caused you.”
“Wow. I thought you understood what you had signed up for here, Janessa. No. That is not how it works.”
“How does it work, D?”
“It works like this. If I rat out anyone, then I become a rat for life. No one trusts me anymore, not my people, not business associates, not anyone. They will either begin to sell me out to whoever they deem it beneficial to do so with or worse, they’ll decide that I must be dealt with once and for all. You know what that means, right?”
“Yes. I think I do.”
“Well, since you don’t seem to be clear about other things, I’m going to make sure you are clear about that. They will murder me, but first, they will take their pound of flesh. What they did to Jack Knife will be nothing compared to what they’ll do to me, a leader who turned on them.”
“You can be protected. The DEA will provide you with protection.”
“Are you serious right now? The DEA is going to protect me? No. They are going to use the people I handed over to them to get to me. They will tell them that I’m the one who sold them out. These are guys who are already planning to take over the club. Do you think for a moment that they will hesitate to turn evidence on me in order to get their own asses out of hot water?”
“It won’t matter if you make a deal. If you have immunity, it won’t matter what those guys tell them.”
“It will matter, because I can only make a deal for myself. I can’t protect my brothers in the MC. Those guys start talking and it snowballs. I’m only the tip of a very large iceberg.”
“So, what, then? We just sit around and wait for these guys to make a move? Then what? You kill them and have more blood on your hands to cover up? Where does the violence end? It’s not the answer.”
“Violence is the only thing a lot of people understand, Janessa. The sooner you accept that, the better off you will be. There are people in this world who don’t respond to anything but the pain you inflict upon them, and if physical pain doesn’t do the trick, then you find what is important to them, and you take it from them. You take everything until they give up the will to fight you.”
“That’s monstrous.”
“Welcome to me. I’m a monster. Didn’t your DEA contact tell you that before you came here? Monsters aren’t under your bed. You’ve got one standing right in front of you.”
“I refuse to believe that about you. I’ve seen so much more of you.”
“You’ve seen what I want you to see. I think it is time for you to go home, Janessa. You’re becoming a liability to me and my club.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I always mean what I say.”
“Really? Because you also said you love me.”
“I’ve come to realize that love isn’t an option I can really afford.”
“You bastard!”
“Now you are getting the picture. Welcome to reality.”
I glared at him for a moment before storming out of the room and to the bedroom to get my things, throwing them rapidly into my bags. There was no reason for me to be here any longer. I was on the verge of tears and refused to let him see me cry.
“Where are you going?”
“Where I should have stayed. Home.”
“Your real home or the one you set up to con me into trusting you?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t fucking tell me what I should or shouldn’t worry about!”
“Worry about yourself, D. That seems to be your primary focus. Watch out for number one and the hell with anyone who tries to get close to you.”
“Fine, Janessa. Go. I’m better off without your meddling. A word of warning though, don’t bring the DEA to my doorstep any further than you already have.”
“Are you threatening me, D?”
“Take it however you like it. Just remember what I said.”
“Hard to forget,” I spat back, jerking the zipper on my bag closed and storming out of the house. Out on the sidewalk, I realized that I had no transportation here, and I wasn’t about to ask him to take me back to my house. I pulled out my cell phone and called a taxi. I’d no more than hung up the phone when I heard his footsteps coming down the walkway behind me.
“Come on. I’ll take you home.”
“Fuck you. I’ll wait for the cab.”
“It wasn’t optional, Janessa. I’m taking you home.”
“No.”
“Don’t be stubborn.”
“Of course not. That’s your specialty.”
“I’m done arguing with you. Am I going to have to toss you over my shoulder and carry you to the car?”
I was relieved to see the cab pull up outside the large iron gates that created a barrier between D’s estate and the outside world. I headed wordlessly toward it, pushing a button on the interior to open the gates and exit. I heard him call my name, but refused to look back. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, let him see the tears streaming down my face.