Chopper

 

Spike had started out dealing marijuana, but as business picked up, he escalated quickly into methamphetamines and cocaine. Now, he was getting into heroin, and the first shipment was due to arrive in three days at the Mongol compound, according to Kelsey. She didn’t know how much it was worth, but she knew the size, and Chopper figured the price to be half a million dollars. It was music to his ears. If he could deny Spike this very valuable haul, it would change the game right off the bat. Of course, Lawler would know immediately who had done it, but that was of no consequence to Chopper; the drugs were yet another bargaining chip in the simmering war between the clubs. A greedy bastard like Spike would do everything he could to minimize the loss, and if the drugs were in danger, his hands would be tied until he figured out a workaround.

 

Chopper planned the interception in less than a day. He put his biggest, meanest men on the job and told them to be as quick as possible, but not to back down in the event of a scrap. Using a map that Kelsey drew, they pinpointed the best point of attack and drew up a plan to lie in wait and ambush the drug mules when they arrived. It would be best if the Mongols didn’t see them at all, but Chopper knew that was almost an impossibility. He advised his men to arm themselves, but not to use their guns unless they absolutely had to. Even bad neighborhoods had nosy neighbors in them, and the last thing they needed was for the cops to be called. Still, he felt good, and as the adrenaline mounted over the next two days, he could tell his boys felt good too. They’d always been gluttons for even the possibility of a fight.

 

 

“Good luck, Hoss.” Chopper sent him off with a firm handshake, and Hoss was smiling as they pulled away from the compound in the dead of night. It was too bad that they couldn’t go in style on their bikes like they wanted to, but the nature of the mission demanded a car. Not even the Mongols were dumb enough not to notice a group of Outlaw bikes at the curb.

 

The boys with him were all a little younger, and all fired up. A couple were fresh blood, and Hoss could tell they were as amped as he had been on his first official club mission. This one was going to be easy as pie, but he didn’t tell them that. Their rambunctious excitement filled him with nostalgia. The darkened landscape of the city sped indistinctly past the windows, their headlights pooling on an empty road. It was a perfect night for a heist. Those jackasses wouldn’t know what hit them.

 

In a rundown neighborhood just outside of downtown, the driver slowed to a stop and let them out. Hoss, feeling like a school librarian, shushed his rowdy squad, but he was pleasantly surprised to find that they had their shit together. They followed him like shadows for a few blocks to the abandoned house where it was agreed they’d set their trap. The mangy lawn hadn’t been mowed for months; it stood knee-high in the deepest places. When the boys lay prone, Hoss couldn’t even tell they were there. As they waited, a bank of clouds rolled in to smother out the moon. Pitch blackness fell upon the desolate house. They couldn’t have manufactured better circumstances.

 

At a quarter past one, Hoss heard voices down the street, heading steadily toward them. He nudged his men, felt them bunch up into coils like snakes ready to strike. The voices inched closer, and when they were within range, Hoss and the boys fell upon them. The mules dropped like flies under the fierce assault, quickly rolling over and covering their faces. The one carrying the package fought back, but he was hampered by his unwillingness to leave five pounds of smack unprotected. Hoss dropped him with a swift, well-placed pistol whip, but his valor inspired the others, who rallied. It was a comically quiet fight, neither side willing to raise their voices, for fear that the police might be summoned. The drugs, encased in a nondescript black backpack, sat at the feet of the fighters, occasionally tripping them up.

 

Hoss was the first to hear the motorcycles. At first, it was only one, droning gradually into the foreground of his consciousness like some huge insect. Then he became aware of the others — many others. The engine voices seemed like a roar to him, so much so that he dropped the sad sack he was grappling and hissed at his compatriots, “Mongols!” They all looked toward the mouth of the street and saw it clogged with bikes. How many were there? Hoss couldn’t count exactly, but he saw at least eight. It made no difference that the headlamps were off; he knew they were grossly outnumbered. A single thought flashed through his head. Why hadn’t Chopper warned him?

 

The silhouettes of the bikes began to morph. Hoss realized the Mongols were dismounting, and soon they’d be heading toward the site of the impromptu service. “Come on,” he growled at his boys. “We need to get the fuck out of Dodge.” It pained him indescribably to retreat from a fight, but Hoss knew a lost cause when he saw one. If they stayed, the Outlaws would be full of holes in less than two seconds.

 

“Hold them!” a voice called out suddenly, the words cutting clean through the almost reverent hush of the deserted street. “Don’t let those fuckers get away!”

 

A pair of hands fell on Hoss’ arm and spun him around with alarming force. But he was a giant of a man, and putting his elbow backward, it landed on an unseen face, resulting in a crack and a howl. The grip loosened, something sticky dampened the sleeve of his jacket. Wheeling toward his men, Hoss bellowed, “What’d I fuckin’ say? Get out of here!” He lurched into a lumbering run toward the dead end of the street, and as he ran, he did a silent head count. Where there should have been three, he found only two. He turned around just in time to see one of the young ones dart forward, toward the phalanx of Mongols, for the drug bag. Playing the hero, Hoss thought wildly. The young ones always gotta play the hero.

 

The kid had one arm through a strap of the backpack when Hoss heard the bullet. It was a pithy, snapping sound, the kind produced by a high-end silencer. In the dimness of the street, he just barely made out the telltale bloom of blood on the kid’s back, but he did see the body spin, limbs flailing. The inertia flung the drugs toward Hoss, the backpack landing hard in the grass. Quick as lightning, he picked it up and ducked. Another bullet sang past him, and another, but it was too dark for the shooter to aim. Hoss headed for the shelter of the back of the house, wading through the grass. Somewhere behind him, he thought he could hear the kid gasping. He didn’t let himself stop.

 

The Outlaws — three of them — ran as soon as they drew level with the back wall of the house. Hoss was counting on the unkempt state of the lot to protect them from their would-be pursuers, and as he listened to engines revving in the street, he thought for a moment that he had read them drastically wrong. Then the sound of the motorcycles was interrupted by a familiar wail. Immediately, the Mongols turned tail. There was no way they could come out on top of a scene like the one that had just been left behind.

 

Hoss had never been so glad to hear the police. The trio of Outlaws hopped the decaying fence at the rear of the property and looped their way through the grimy backstreets of the neighborhood. No one here thought twice about the sirens — it was a daily occurrence. Were it light enough to see the patches on their club jackets, the three men might have looked out of place, but cloaked as they were by the dark, they passed unseen. Two miles or so from the abandoned house, Hoss called in for a pickup, and five minutes later, they were on their way back to the compound. The drugs sat in the empty spot where the dead kid should have been.

 

They didn’t say a word.

 

Chopper was waiting for them. The others balked when they saw him, and Hoss sent them away. “I’ll deal with it,” he said gruffly. They disappeared from his side, and he walked up to his boss alone, the pack slung over one shoulder. He put it down in front of Chopper. Then he said, “Ray’s dead.” It was the first time he’d ever said the kid’s name out loud.

 

“What?” Chopper’s eyes lingered on the backpack, but soon they moved to Hoss’ face. “What do you mean, Ray’s dead?” He craned his neck to look past Hoss, but the rest of the crew had long since dissipated — and Hoss knew Ray wasn’t with them anyway.

 

“Dead,” Hoss repeated. “Didn’t have a chance.” He frowned slightly. “The fuck didn’t you tell us there were gonna be so many, Chop? I woulda called it, and we could’ve come back another time. Ain’t like Spike’s gonna stop running anytime soon.”

 

Chopper’s face darkened. “How many were there?” he asked, his voice low.

 

“Beats me,” Hoss rubbed the back of his neck, trying to recall a number through the haze of fight-or-flight. “I think I saw eight bikes, but maybe there were ten. Twelve? Could’ve been a hundred for all I know.” He gave the black bag a sullen shove. “I told ‘em to beat it, stash or not, but Ray thought he could save it. You know how the little shits are.” Hoss made a gun with his thumb and two fingers. “Shot.” He was silent for a time. Then he said, “I had to leave him.”

 

Chopper nodded. He put his hand on Hoss’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. He did know how the new boys were, ten times as willing to put themselves in the line of fire if it meant they had a shot at winning their patches early. Sometimes those actions had deadly costs, and sometimes that wasn’t anyone’s fault but the one who chose to risk his life. This time, however, Chopper knew it was a needless loss. He knew there was someone to blame. Out loud, he said, “It was all you could do, Hoss. Did the cops show?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“They’ll get him home to his family.” Chopper wished he could step in and do something to ease the burden of the death, but he couldn’t risk incriminating everyone involved in the incident. He’d have to treat the murder of his club brother as though it had never really happened, and that made a sharp fury burn inside him. He felt betrayed. He had offered asylum to Kelsey, not to mention a no-holds-barred means of escape, and she had immediately held out on him. He told Hoss to get some sleep and started the walk back to his rooms, where he knew Kelsey was sleeping. In the minutes that it took for him to reach his door, his anger grew to frightening proportions. He stormed in and flipped the light switch in the bedroom.

 

Kelsey emerged groggily from her cocoon of blankets, shielding her eyes from the sudden illumination. “Chopper?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep. “What’s wrong?” She put her hand down and blinked at him, rubbing her eyes.

 

“Hoss just brought back the shipment,” Chopper said. “Five pounds, just like you said. It’s in a black backpack. You want to see it?”

 

“What?” She looked confused. “No. I mean, if you have it, then everything’s fine.”

 

“It’s all right,” Chopper said evenly. “Half a million dollars in the bank. But what I’m wondering is why the fuck you didn’t tell me one of my boys would have to die for it!” His voice rose slowly through the last sentence until he was shouting at her, hands curled into fists. “It would’ve been nice to know that they were sending a ten-man escort, Kelsey! It would’ve been real fuckin’ nice!”

 

Her eyes were wide, but they held no tears. If she was afraid, he could barely tell. “Who died?” she asked in a small, flat voice.

 

Chopper scowled. “What do you fucking care? All you need to know is that he’s dead now because you couldn’t be bothered to tell me the right information. It was the only thing I asked of you, Kelsey! The only thing!”

 

She gritted her teeth. “Listen, you asshole,” she hissed with surprising venom. “I don’t know why you keep assuming I know everything about what goes on inside that Mongol shithole. Your conclusions aren’t my responsibility. If I had known Spike was sending a platoon to pick up the drugs, I would have told you. But I didn’t. I didn’t know.”

 

“Fuck you, you didn’t know!” Chopper barked. He ripped the comforter off the bed and then pulled back the sheet, leaving her naked body exposed. “Get dressed and get out,” he commanded. “There’s no room in here for liars. You wanna act like one of the men, you can go and mingle with ‘em.”

 

Kelsey stared at him like he was insane, but she did as he said. As she walked out of the room, she looked over her shoulder and said, “You’re a prick.” Then she was gone, the door slammed behind her.

 

Chopper threw himself back on the bed, still steaming with rage, but he could already feel it starting to ebb in the face of slow but inevitable regret. He still found it fucked up that she could draw him a map but not tell him the number of Mongols that were on pickup duty, but he knew that realistically, much of the fault was his own. It was stupid to think that Spike would leave such a large package to the care of only a few men; he certainly had more enemies than just Chopper and his crew. Hard drugs were a real tough scene — every exchange came with significant risk. Of course, he’d sent a small army. Wouldn’t Chopper have done the same?

 

He put his hands over his face and groaned. Kelsey was right, damn her. He was prone to jumping to conclusions on his own: years of holding iron authority at the head of the Outlaws had taught him that all his decisions had to be absolute, that there was no room for backpedaling of any kind. He’d trained himself to ingest the facts and go with his gut, and there was no denying that this time, his gut had simply been wrong.

 

Kelsey still wasn’t innocent. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there were things she kept from him, and things she’d continue to keep. But it had been wrong to take his anger and pain out on her.

 

He gave himself a while to calm down. Sure, he’d kicked her out of the cozy bedroom, but he had no doubt that Kelsey could hold her own in the clubhouse, and she probably wasn’t too keen on looking at him so soon anyway. After all traces of his outburst had left his system, Chopper went to find her. He’d half expected her to come back to the room demanding to be let in, but she hadn’t, and it quickly became apparent that she wasn’t in any of the places he thought she’d be. He checked the whole place, and then he checked it again. No Kelsey. He went into the security rooms and looked at footage of the outside cameras to see if she left. She didn’t turn up there either. On his third pass of the grounds, he noticed a light coming from under the door of one of the bathrooms, and he went up and knocked.

 

“Hold on a second.” Kelsey’s voice sounded strangely unsteady. Concerned, Chopper tried the knob, found it unlocked, and went in. She was huddled over the toilet, her long hair falling out of its tie. He could see beyond her shoulders that the bowl was full, and as he stood there, she retched and filled it some more. Her body shook with the force of throwing up, and so did her hand when she raised it to wipe her mouth. Her cheeks were flushed, streaked with tears. He had never seen anything more pitiful in his life. It made him feel like a monster. When he sat down beside her, and she turned to see him and whispered, “Sorry,” the effect multiplied by ten.

 

“Fuck it,” he said as he pulled her hair out of her face. “You’re right. I’m a prick.” Somewhat awkwardly, he refastened her hair tie, doing his best not to pull. Then he found a paper towel and a cup for water, which he held for her to drink. She puked twice more before she let him carry her back to bed. He stationed an empty wastebasket next to her, placed a fresh water glass on the nightstand, and decided that he wouldn’t leave her side until she was better. After his amazing display of classic asshole behavior, it was the least he could do. He reached over and stroked her hair gently, just once. She didn’t open her eyes, but her face turned toward him.

 

Chopper smiled.