Chapter Five
Russ
I’m sitting at the bar, making small talk with Chas when I first hear my name drunkenly spill out of Auric’s mouth. Auric, he and I have a complicated history. We started about the same time, but I was always a rung above him on the ladder. I’d earn colors before him, I was the first between us to go out on an “assignment,” and obviously, I was the first to be put in charge. Used to be, we’d chat and laugh about it: Nothing more than friendly competition. Now, though, I have a pretty good idea why he’s speaking my name.
Looking up at Chas, I know she heard it, too. I can’t hear a lot of what he’s saying, but the word, “Ghost” pops up enough my heart starts pounding in my chest. The longer he speaks, the louder he gets until the rest of the bar catches wind, and then it’s just Auric talking.
He’s drunk enough he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that his conversation is no longer private. It doesn’t matter.
“…a little convenient that Ghost gets bumped up immediately?” he says. “Of all the guys in the club, why him, huh? He ain’t been here longest, he ain’t brought in as much, or made more solid contacts than anyone else, so why him? You know what I think?”
For Auric’s sake as well as my own, I hope he’s not about to go where I know he’s about to go. I start making my way, slowly, across the bar to the table where Auric’s spilling as much of his beer as he’s getting into his flapping mouth.
“I think Ghost’s been spending a bit too much time around Rev and Riley,” Auric says. “He’s been getting close so Rev would think of him if things ever went bad. Once he got that attention, boom! Police come screamin’ in here, got everybody on the ground, but it don’t stop there. They go straight for Rev. Why him? I mean, I know they got their sights on us and all that, so maybe they know already who’s in charge around here, but ain’t nobody in this fuckin’ club got their hands clean. They went straight for Rev, and nobody, but nobody else got shit done to ‘em.”
I’m close enough, the guys sitting around the table start trying to shut Auric up without making a scene, but Auric doesn’t stop.
“I think Ghost’s been workin’ on this a while, and soon as he knew Rev’d give ‘im the nod, he screws the boss to get hisself bumped up to top dog,” Auric says.
The last time accusations flew around this place, people started drawing lines. Yardbird said something without thinking about not seeing Stigma since before the raid. What Yardbird didn’t know was Stigma was about five feet behind him, shooting pool. Stigma overheard what Yardbird said, and the whole fucking place blew up in fists and fury.
That was the night I met Julie.
I came in after pulling her outta here, and with the right kind of shout, I was able to get the guys to cool out, but that wasn’t even an accusation. It was just, “Any of you guys seen Stigma around since the raid?”
That was it. That was all it took.
In our world, this is sedition, and sooner or a lot sooner, one of us is gonna have to go, and I’m not talking about riding off into the sunset in search of a different fortune.
The men at and around Auric’s table are shaking their heads, putting up their hands, basically doing everything they can to distance themselves from what Auric’s saying without saying anything themselves.
Auric’s saying, “I mean, think about it. He ain’t first in line, but there he is over there at the bar, Rev’s chosen replacement ‘til we get the big guy outta the joint. I ain’t got proof yet, but you listen to me good when I say…”
And that’s when he notices the guys aren’t looking at him, they’re looking up and behind him. Auric slowly turns his head until he’s looking at me. There’s a mixture of fear and anger on his face, and I’m standing there with my arms crossed and about ten guys beside and behind me.
“You got somethin’ you wanna say to me?” I ask.
The men around me, I don’t know if they’re there to back me up or if they’re just surrounding me to end it quicker. I’m not going down without a fight, but there’s no way I could take all of ‘em. I could try to run, but I wouldn’t make it three feet. All I can do is focus on Auric and hope he sticks his tail between his legs so quick it goes right up his ass. Otherwise, one of us ain’t making it outta here tonight, and I’m not sure it won’t be me pushing up the daisies if it goes that way.
“I was just havin’ a conversation,” Auric says. “Just screwin’ around, you know, boss.”
“Not what it sounded like to me,” I answer.
It’s silent. Auric’s looking up at me, and I can see the wheels turning in his head. I’ve had plenty of guys give me their pledge: they’re on my side. None of those men are standing around me now. Loyalty is everything, and I don’t know if there’s a single man ten feet in any direction—and there are plenty of ‘em packed in close to see what’s about to happen—who’s got my back if it happens now.
“You got somethin’ to say to me, I recommend you spit it out now before I drag it out of you,” I tell him. It’s not a turn of phrase. One of the Grinning Heretics’ favorite ways of gleaning information is tying someone up behind a bike and dragging them until they’re ready to hand over their life to make it stop. “Otherwise,” I continue, “I suggest you shut your fuckin’ mouth before we find out who’s really top dog around here.”
Auric smirks, scoffs, but it’s a minute before he says anything. Finally, a sheepish smile crosses his face. He says, “You know, I think I had too much of the sauce tonight, man. You know me, boss, get a couple in there, and out comes the bullshit. I’m gonna get home and sleep it off ‘fore I say anything else stupid.”
I heard enough of what he said, I can’t ignore it. Any Grinning Heretic who didn’t hear it with their own ears is going to hear it out of someone else’s mouth before the night’s over.
“I’ve bled for the Grinning Heretics. I’ve bled for Rev. I’ve even bled for you, you ignorant piece of shit,” I tell Auric. “I’d die before I turn my back on Rev, and you’re sittin’ there questioning my loyalty, bitch?”
He gave me no choice. I have to take care of him now, or I don’t make it through the night. I grab him by the throat and lift him to his feet. His hands are up. Either he doesn’t want a fight tonight, or he’s waiting for his guys in the crowd around me to take me down, and I don’t have time to figure out which.
I ram my forehead into his face, breaking his nose in a spray of blood. He falls to the ground, and I’m on top of him before he has time to bounce. The men around us just stand there. They want to see what happens, and for the sake of my own life, I’ve gotta show ‘em.
I won’t kill him, but if I’m going to walk out of here, I’ve gotta make sure Auric can’t: Not without a lot of help. Lifting him by his collar with one hand, I hammer my other fist into his face hard enough I’m surprised his head doesn’t leave a dent when it slams into the floor. I lift my fist again, ready to bring it down, but Auric’s out like a busted lightbulb. Just to make sure everyone else gets the point, I lift him up a bit just so the guys crowded around us can see him drop limp.
I stand up, and everyone takes a couple of steps back to give me room. Looks like I made my point, but short of killing Auric, all I’m doing is delaying the inevitable. If it’s not Auric, it’ll be someone else. As I walk away, a couple of guys pick Auric up off the ground and carry him out of the bar.
Nobody says a word.
I walk up to the bar and Chas hands me a towel to wipe Auric’s blood off my forehead, so I do. I’m just trying to stay alive, but every choice I make just paints me further into a corner. Now, all I can do is survive as long as possible.
It crosses my mind to just get on my bike and go, but they’d find me. We’ve got Grinning Heretics in every state touching this one, and even more friends and “colleagues” who all know my name and face. I’d spend the rest of my very short life running, and that’s not the way I want to go.
I never should’ve joined up. This isn’t what I want from my life, but there’s no point dwelling on should haves. I need to talk to Rev. I need to figure a way out of this, and without him strong behind me, I’m dead no matter what. Problem is Riley’s the only one he put on his visitor’s list. We don’t visit each other in jail. Jails have sign-in sheets and they check IDs. Rev would never allow someone to compromise the Grinning Heretics like that. I need him behind me, not pissed that I broke the rules.
There’s nothing I want more than to get out of here right now, but it doesn’t look good if I run away after what just happened. There are so many unspoken rules around here, sometimes it’s hard to do anything.
So, I get up from my stool at the bar and head to the bathroom. I wash my face, making sure I’ve got all Auric’s blood off of me, before I finally head for the door. Nobody says anything to me. Nobody even looks in my direction.
When I get outside, it’s clear my night’s not over yet. There are three men: Yardbird, Deadpan, and Switch, standing by my bike, and from the look on their faces, they’re not bringing me cookies.
I’m getting ready for another fight when I hear a car door slam behind me. Turning my head, I see a cab at the curb, and Julie’s walking toward me. “You really shouldn’t be here right now,” I tell her before she comes closer. “Actually, you probably shouldn’t be here at all.”
I look back toward my bike, and the three waiting to pound me are making their way back to the bar. They’re not going to take me out with Julie and the cab driver as witnesses, but this is far from over.
“Oh,” Julie says, taking a step back. She very well may have just saved my life, but it’s probably better she doesn’t know that. Most people don’t deal with that sort of thing so well. “I just—I wasn’t sure I’d want to see you again, but the more time passed, I just kept thinking about, well, you, and—”
Even with Yardbird, Switch, and Deadpan back in the bar, this is not a safe place for either of us, so I interrupt Julie, saying, “You wanna get out of here?”
She smiles. “Yeah,” she says. “Give me just a second.”
Julie runs back toward the cab. At first, I think she’s just going over to pay the driver, but she reaches in the back and pulls out a black motorcycle helmet. I’m antsy just standing here with everything going on, but as I watch her come over with that proud look on her face and a brand new helmet in her hand, I just wish I met her years ago, before everything got so fucked up and complicated.
“I know it’s presumptuous of me, but Riley mentioned you had to borrow her helmet for me last time, and I know you weren’t really expecting me,” she says.
“I like it,” I tell her. “Strap it on, and we’ll head out.”
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“Up to you,” I tell her. “I can take you home, or there’s this place I know where I go sometimes to think.” I glance back at the bar. There are a couple of guys out smoking. They’re staring at us.
“I’m up for a journey,” she says.
In a different life, Julie is exactly the kind of woman I could see myself settling down with. We’re about as different as two people can be, but there’s something about her that just cuts right through to the center of me.
“Let’s go,” I tell her, and we walk to my bike. She gets on the back, and we start off.
Her hands are around my waist this time. She doesn’t have to give me directions this time.
Where we’re headed, it’s about a five-mile ride. Once the bar is out of eyeshot, I gun it. It’s only a few minutes before we’re winding up the old road on the side of the mountain.
I checked behind me to make sure we weren’t followed, and nobody else at the club knows this place as far as I know. We should be safe, but there are no guarantees. So when I pull off the road and into the pullout area overlooking the valley, I put my bike in neutral and keep it running.
“Wow!” Julie says with a gasp, walking over to the guard rail. “That’s a gorgeous view!”
“They did,” I tell her. In fact, they did close the road for a few years, but reopened it a while back. It’s better to let her think the bike’s still running because we’re not technically supposed to be here than to scare her with the truth. This spot, even if they did follow us, we’d hear them coming long before they got here.
“I haven’t seen the city from up here since I was a kid,” she says. “I don’t remember it looking like this.”
“The city’s grown,” I tell her. “That’s not always a good thing.”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Cities change, people change. When I was younger, I came up here when things got bad at home. On a motorcycle, it’s a nice drive. On a pedal bike…” Charlotte—of course, I named my motorcycle—putters beneath me. “Up here, everything looks so small. I know everyone says the same thing. It all boils down to perspective. Things are just as big in the city right now as they’d be if we were standing in the middle of it, but from out here, it’s not so daunting. At least it didn’t use to be. It’s harder to imagine anything there getting close enough to do any damage, and for a little bit, you feel just a bit more like you got some power over the things in your life. Or, I do, anyway.”
A minute passes, maybe more. That city that looks so small in the distance, one of these days, maybe today, it’s going to eat me alive. I shouldn’t be here, not with Julie. She doesn’t know the truth about my life. If she knew how close I am to the end, she’d get off the bike now and walk home just to keep her distance.
“I should take you home,” I tell her.
“So soon?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “It’s getting dark.” I’ve never had a problem driving at night. Besides, I know these roads like I know myself: all tangled and never seeming to go anywhere you’d wanna go. Every second she’s with me, especially in open air, I’m putting her in danger.
“Okay,” she says. “I’m ready when you are.”
She puts her arms back around me, and I steer through the overgrown parking lot until we’re back on asphalt. I yell back to her, “Hang on!” and I open Charlotte up a bit. We hit a quarter-mile straight, and I can feel her hands leaving my waist. Behind me, she vents her excitement, and I wish I could freeze this moment in my head.
Behind me, Julie’s laughing, and hugging my waist. This is a vacation for her. I just wish I could give her more for what she’s already given me: Something to look forward to. I haven’t had that since… I can’t remember.
When we get closer to the city, Julie puts her hands back on my shoulders like the first time I took her for a ride. She squeezes my shoulders, letting me know where to turn. We come to a neighborhood, and after a couple of blocks, she’s pointing toward a two-level house. Good news is she’s starting to trust me. I didn’t know what to say when she had me drop her off at the park.
She gets off the bike and pulls her helmet from her head. A huge smile is chiseled into her skin, and she’s breathing hard.
“Well, here you go,” I tell her. “I’m sorry if I startled you earlier, but that bar’s probably not the safest place right now.”
“I understand,” she says. “Well, not really, but I trust you enough to take your word for it.”
I force a smile. “Well,” I start, but I don’t know what else to say.
“It’s kind of silly for me to keep dropping in on you like that,” she says. “I hope I’m not driving you crazy.”
I shake my head. Maybe I’ll never see her again, maybe I will. Either way, I feel like I owe her some truth. “You give me something to look forward to,” I tell her. I’m about to say more, but there is such a thing as too much truth. There’s no telling what it would do to her if she knew everything going on in my life.
She smiles, and pulls that “aww” face, but doesn’t make the sound. She’s moving her lips and her tongue like her mouth is dry. She clears her throat, saying, “I need a drink of something. Do you want anything? Maybe some coffee?”
She’s inviting me in for coffee. I don’t know if it’s coffee or “coffee,” but I know I want to say yes.
I glance up the street, and back the other way. No bikes, no cars parked with anyone inside of them. I don’t think we were followed, but I don’t want to put her in any more risk than I already have.
“Would you mind if I put my bike in your garage?” I ask.
She cocks her head to one side, seemingly surprised at the question. “Sure,” she says. “So, does that mean you would like to come inside?”
“Yes, I do.”