Chapter One
Russ
Somewhere else right now, one of the world’s most vicious blood sports is taking place. It’s in every major city, but it’s spreading so much farther than that. There are no rules, or at least, nobody pays attention if there are. Every year, more people ignore the warnings. Everyone’s seen the videos. Sitting somewhere crowded, ignoring the people they came with, they read the stories on their phones or watch last year’s recap. They know better. At least, I’d hope so. It happens the same day every year. It’s the day after Thanksgiving. Someone dubbed it Black Friday, but I couldn’t tell you why.
Maybe it’s called Black Friday because it’s something people would rather keep hidden. Those people, they can’t be proud of themselves. The ones trampling the woman who went down right in front of them just so they don’t lose that crucial half-second that could be the difference between going home with the newest anorexic doll or the cruel scorn of their overindulged children: I can’t imagine they bear their porcelain too wide passing mirrors.
The worst part for me are the excuses. If you ever doubt everyone thinks they’re the “good guy,” ask someone who just threw an elbow into the face of a father carrying his toddler a minute fifty after doors opened why they did it. Hell, if Capone were alive and you asked him, he’d say he was a public servant. He’d tell you it was the people coming after him that had crossed the morality line. Ask whoever you want, you’ll get justification for everything.
It’s how you appear respectable to a society when you’re breaking its rules.
So if you’re still clinging to that fairytale that good people know they’re good and bad people know they’re bad, go ahead and ask one of the “bad ones” why they do what they do.
Just don’t ask me.
The people in those Black Friday videos, I bet most of them color between the lines 364 days a year. My ratio tends to go the other way. They’re good people put into a bad position, or something like that. Me, I’ve never pulled someone’s hair out of their scalp to get a sweet deal on a smartphone that’s outdated garbage by the time that bald patch fills in again. If you asked someone who had, though, I bet they’d still tell you it’s me that’s the bad guy.
Maybe they’re right.
Where I was from, I didn’t have a whole lot of options. Every day was one bad position after another, stretching on forever. Then I became a Heretic.
We don’t call them motorcycle gangs, anymore. I’m not sure we ever did. On paper, even on our patches, it’s Grinning Heretics Motorcycle Club. That’s all we are. We have our own bar, our own shop across the street. They’re both paid in full. We can afford these things because everyone does their part. Everyone pitches in.
Most of us have day jobs. Me, I work in the shop across the street. I’d even say most of the guys, they’re every bit as upstanding as citizens as anyone you’ll find in a major department store the day after Thanksgiving. The only difference is our Black Fridays come a bit more often.
We’re not a front for a huge underground meth ring. The tattoos, the motorcycles, the scars… If you don’t think the cops know who we are, you’re crazy. So many movies, so many TV shows, they’ve painted us into a corner somewhere around the time the Hell’s Angels tore Altamont apart, and as far as I can tell, not a whole lot of people have changed their minds about us since then. I’m not saying we’re the kind of organization you’d want your kid to join when he grows up, but we’re not blowing away lawmen on our endless quest to threaten the peace and security of America’s most vulnerable communities. I’m not saying our hands don’t get more than engine lube staining ‘em, either. Oil and blood is kind of our motto.
“Ghost?”
Earlier today, this place was empty. It was kind of nice having the bar to myself for a while. Most bars aren’t bumping before noon. The Low Dive isn’t most bars, though. Any time you come in here, day or night, you’ll find at least a dozen Heretics shooting pool or pounding beers. Not this morning, though. Why not this morning? Well, like I said, it’s the day after Thanksgiving.
What? You don’t think we appreciate a decent bargain?
“Ghost?” I look up to find Chastity leaning over the counter toward me. The people I grew up with, before, you know, they call me Russ. Here, I’m Ghost. “You want another, hon?” she asks.
“Just one more before the next one,” I answer.
“Rinse, repeat,” she says. “You sure you don’t want me to just bring ya the bottle, sweetie?”
“Nah,” I answer. “I tell the guys you and me have a thing going behind closed doors and they see you stopping by every couple minutes to give me somethin’, they might just believe me. Now, why would I want to go and ruin a good thing like that?”
Most people, at least the people I know, they hear the name Chastity, they’re thinking about the twenty-year-old college student paying rent spinning on poles. They think about the girl next door none of them ever lived next to, the perky one who expresses her gratitude the fun way. And she’s always grateful for something.
Reality, though, is at sixty years old and with none of her original front teeth left, Chas’s the now borderline-geriatric daughter of long-burnt-out hippie parents you’d expect to see slinging coffee in some Midwestern diner where they put pictures of the food in the cheese-stained menu. Not that anyone in this bar would ever say something like that to her.
She taps her nicotine-stained fingers from pinky to pointer in rapid succession a few times, shaking her head. “Boy,” she says in a voice almost as deep as mine, “you couldn’t handle me if you brought a friend.”
Flirt with Chas the right way, and you might just get a free shot out of it. Flirt with her the wrong way, and your grill’s gonna be lookin’ a lot like hers before you have time to duck. It’s a risk just like everything else, but I’m low on cash.
Behind me, the doors swing open hard enough the sound of them smacking the walls has every set of eyes in the place fixed on who’s coming in. There’s a loud cheer as a woman dressed in a Santa costume swaggers into the bar, arms above her head like she’s slowly descending from some high, holy place. Fat John must’ve hired her. For Fat John, it’s not a party until the stripper shows up.
Ms. Claus keeps her garb for now, though, as she takes those high, deliberate steps that result from wearing platform sandals with eight-inch heels. Now I know it’s not the police storming in for another raid, I turn back to Chas, who quickly pours me a shot. She walks away without taking payment.
I drink my shot of vodka, and Fat John is nudging me, saying, “Now you look at her and tell me she ain’t the sexiest thing that walked in here in years.”
I glance back at Ms. Claus, and then back at John. “Got a thing for large, bearded women in winter clothes?” I ask.
“That’s just the costume, man,” he says. “She’s a stripper.”
Fat John’s called Fat John because that square foot of real estate inside his skull generates roughly the same brainpower as a bowl of melted fat. He might be offended by the nickname if anyone ever took the time to explain it to him.
Behind me, I hear men whooping and doling out catcalls as if there was a woman alive who responded positively to that sort of thing. I lift my empty shot glass enough for Chas to see, and she comes back, filling it back up to the top.
When I was younger, I got money coming in, I got my own place. I have just about as much as I could have hoped for when I joined up with the Heretics. It used to be I didn’t have a lot of choices in my life. Now I have none.
This isn’t my life, anymore. That’s probably the wrong way to say it, ‘cause it’s all I ever do. Wake up, go to the shop for a while, leave the shop, go to the bar, go home. Rinse, repeat, just like Chas said. Used to be I’d get a real buzz outta jackin’ a bike from some jackoff in the wrong club. Now, Rev walks in, I’m hoping he doesn’t even see me. I’ve been here long enough, done enough damage. I’m on the shortlist to step up to the top when Rev dies or goes to prison: retirement isn’t an option for any of us. I hope I’m dead and buried before I’m put in a position like that.
The stripper still hasn’t lost a single piece of clothing, but nobody seems to care. She’s sitting on Raw Dog’s lap—something I wouldn’t suggest anyone do unless one of ‘em’s wearing one of those bio suits—askin’ him what he wants for Christmas. I don’t hear what he says to her, but I can make a pretty good guess judgin’ by the wide-mouthed laughter coming out the nodding faces of everyone close enough to pick it up.
Ms. Claus gets up and continues her slow prance through the place. I’m tryin’ to pay her enough attention she don’t feel like she’s gotta draw me out or somethin’. They always go for the quiet ones, but I’m not here to be drawn out of anything. I’m here ‘cause I got nowhere else to go and the booze is cheap. The longer I can go without talking or interacting with anyone, the better my night’s gonna be. I guess you could say I’m in a bit of a mood.
Lucky for me, Ms. Claus is slithering one arm around Endo’s shoulder as she plops down into his lap. She asks what he wants for Christmas. Endo says, “You behind the bar without the outfit.”
The guys laugh and spill beer, and then glare at each other when some of that spilled beer ends up on one of ‘em. It’s the same thing every day until it’s not. Those are the worst days of all, when something’s gotta get done we don’t do every day. That means I’m in on whatever’s goin' on, wishing I wasn’t.
Ms. Claus flashes the front of her coat open, showin’ off the predictable red bra with white fur around the edges. It’s not even December yet, but I’m sick of Christmas. It’s nothing against Ms. Claus. What I can see of her looks good to me. It’s not about that. I just don’t like people pretending they’re something they’re not. Suddenly, everyone’s got some sugar-water line about how enlightened they are. That is, everybody except the men in this room. One thing I’ll give the Grinning Heretics: they’re assholes, but at least they’re honest about it.
I glance over to Rev. He’s always telling me I should talk more to the new people. Problem is, when I try, I’m not talking. I’m yelling at this one for being an idiot, or that one for… well, they’re all idiots. Most new guys really think they want a part of who we are right until they join up and suddenly, nobody wants to get their hands dirty. When they realize dirty hands aren’t optional, they try to make themselves as useless as possible. That’s when they’re handed off to me. I hate being the drill instructor, but my particular brand of impatience gets results, I guess.
The stripper sits on Rev’s lap, throwing her arms around his neck like she’s there for him and him alone. Unless Ms. Claus came with a “To: Rev; From: Whoever” tag under her beard, a dozen guys are going to say they’re the one that made the call and paid the bill. Everything is politics. Someone’s sucking up to the boss.
Ms. Claus almost shouts, “What would you like for Christmas, Big Boy?” I’ve got a shot of vodka about six inches away from my face when the front door opens. I see the canister, but there’s no time before it detonates. It’s so loud I hear only a pop before I can’t hear anything anymore. It’s so bright, it doesn’t matter that I turned away when I saw what was coming.
I hate flashbangs.
For a moment, there’s nothing I can do but sit here, hunched over the bar so I don’t fall off my stool. I’m blinking my eyes hard shut, then wide open, over and over, but it makes no difference. This far from the door, my senses should come back before I’m arrested if it’s the cops. If it’s not the cops, I’m already dead, and I’m not going to spend my last moments panicking about it.
I drink what hasn’t spilled out of my shot glass and then I’m making myself yawn like it’s going to make my ears suddenly work again. My hand is on the Glock 27 I’ve got in a holster under my jacket, but right now I wouldn’t know who I was shooting.
Still blinking, I slowly make my way to my feet. I take my hand off my gun long enough to steady myself against the bar. This isn’t my first time in a room with a flashbang, but the disorientation is as bad as the first time. My eyes start working again, and I’m surprised I’m still on my feet the way I’m leaning backward and sideways, facing away from the bar now.
It’s the police. Half the guys in the club are on their stomachs with guns in their backs, while the rest of us try to figure our odds if bullets fly. Our odds aren’t good, so hands come out of jackets, out from under shirts, from around backs empty. None of us is a threat, at least until we see an advantage. Rev is standing between the police and the stripper. The one thing that’s kept me here, other than not wanting to be tracked down and most likely killed, is Rev’s just that kind of guy.
What’s odd is they’re not cuffing anyone. They’ve got the numbers, but right now they just seem interested in crowd control.
They’re going for Rev. This is not going to end well. Rev’s the big boss. We’re not just going to let them walk out of here with him. Not before shell casings blanket the floor. In no time, I went from done with this life to ready to lay my blood on the line to protect it. This is survival.
Rev moves forward, and the cops take half a step back, not sure what he’s going to do. At six-feet-seven-inches, Rev has that effect on people. He looks around the bar, and then he puts his hands up. Everyone on our side follows suit.
The stripper, she’s being escorted out of the bar, the beard still over her face. She’s the one who gave the signal.
They cuff Rev and he looks at me.
Shit.
He nods, and then slowly, calmly, walks out with the police. He doesn’t say a word. Grinning Heretics don’t talk to cops, and he’s leading by example. Nobody turns their heads as he’s escorted out of the bar, but most of the guys are watching Rev. The rest, they’re watching me.
This was a raid. Raids mean they took some time planning this means they’ve got something solid on Rev means someone we know did this. If Rev shook his head at me, I wouldn’t see tomorrow. Dozens of eyes are on me now as the police let the door close behind them. They didn’t want anyone else. They just wanted Rev, but they wanted everyone to see it. They could have taken him when he wasn’t sitting in the middle of a few dozen armed bikers. This was a display of power. Someone wanted Rev out of the way, and so they made a deal. Now I’m in charge. I’m the one who benefits.
This doesn’t look good for me.
The eyes still on me aren’t friendly or surprised: They’re suspicious, angry.
The one thing keeping me alive right now is the same thing that kept all of us from drawing metal and seeing who could paint the fastest: Rev.
I can see Auric right now, nudging the people around him, whispering to them. This soon after a raid, nobody’s going to say anything loud enough to get picked up by a mic. It doesn’t matter, though. I know what he’s saying. Raid hits, Rev’s gone, I get more power. Everyone knows what he’s saying, because they’re all thinking it, too.
This may not be what I want for my life anymore, but I never talked to the cops. It doesn’t matter. I’m where a lot of the men in this room want to be. Whether they believe I had anything to do with the raid or not, it’s an opportunity.
Through the years, I’ve earned the respect of nearly everybody in here. That might give me a day, maybe two. Respect for Rev’s wishes might give me a few more days, but however long I have isn’t long enough. Unless I can get Rev out of jail and prove someone else was the rat, I’m dead.