Francesca
“What are we doing here?” Francesca asked, glancing around the inside of the bar. It looked like a shady little place, filled with people that looked like mugshots on a grimy wall. She’d dressed down for this occasion, forcing Nikki to dress down, too. But even in their bargain bin jeans with tears in them and ill-fitting Walmart t-shirts, they still looked too good for this place.
The wood walls were ancient, lanced with a thousand holes from darts and broken glass. The clear coat over the top of the bar looked inches deep, added one layer at time over decades, grime and the soot of cigarette smoke caught between the layers.
The few stragglers that were in the bar at this hour glanced up at the three of them with a mix of wariness and anger. Francesca tried not to look at any of them too long, ignoring the mottled tattoos that bled out into their skin with time, like she was looking at them through etched glass. A few of the patrons had missing teeth. Something made the inside of the bar smell like trash and body odor.
“There better be a damned good reason we’re here.” Nikki glanced around with a look of barely concealed disgust; it must have matched the expression the Francesca herself was wearing.
Quentin just grinned at them. His lackluster appearance fit this place in a way that the girls never could. It was probably the poorly tied tie and mustard stains on his clothing. “You remember how you asked your mom’s private investigator for tips? Well, one of them contacted me; he found that this bar was a frequent haunt of your boyfriend’s people. And I think we might find something here if we look hard enough.”
Francesca winced. “What kind of looking will we be doing?”
“Watch and learn, Princess,” Quentin said, snapping at the bartender.
The old man came over, his rock hard expression matching his rock hard body. He looked to be about sixty and was completely gray, but looked like time had not touched his muscles. The man seemed like he could tie their limbs together with those bulging arms. He looked like he’d seen some things that Francesca could only imagine in her deepest nightmares.
She had a hard time meeting his clear, ice blue eyes that were as cold as snowfall.
“Greetings, I would like a beer and two of something girly,” Quentin said, waving dismissively at the two ladies. He then handed the bartender a enough money to pay for all of their drinks and stock in the bar while they were at it. Francesca frowned at the obvious bribery, and the bartender did, too.
“What are you digging for?” the man asked, his voice like cigarette smoke and gravel. “I most likely can’t help the likes of you.” His eyes ran over Francesca and Nikki. Not in a sexual way, though; it was more like he was sizing them up, reading their pasts and personalities in every inch of their skin. It was too obvious they didn’t belong here, no matter what Francesca was wearing.
She took their glasses of wine without so much as a grimace. Francesca even managed to sip hers without making a face.
“I hear that Logan Pendergrass and his boys in the Satan’s Chaos frequented this place.” Quentin glanced around, his eyes tracing the outlines of the bar’s ceiling. “I also hear Logan might have been arrested two nights ago.”
The bartender’s bushy, salt-and-pepper eyebrows flew up into his hair, his icy eyes becoming unbelievably huge in his tanned face. “Who told you all that?”
“A friend,” Quentin said, ignoring the glare from the bartender. Francesca glanced around, but none of the other patrons seemed to be able to hear them speaking, for which she was thankful. “We know he was set up by Zook, and we want to ensure Logan isn’t doing time for someone else’s crime.”
“Logan?” The bartender looked surprised, then suspicious. “How do I know you’re telling the truth? You could be anyone.”
“We might be anyone, sir,” Francesca whispered, wincing as those cold eyes landed on her face. But she forced herself to stare him in the face. “But I need Logan out of jail.” She didn’t have to fake the wobble in her voice. It had been there since the moment Logan had been dragged off of the floor and out of her arms. “If there is anything you can do to help us…” Her voice trailed off, but she kept her eyes locked with his.
It was the bartender that turned away first.
“Alright, I might have something to help you.” The bartender called to his backup to watch the bar as he took the three of them into the back. His shoulders looked tense and unhappy. “Here.” He handed Francesca a tape. It was unmarked. “This tape has Zook threatening the guy Logan supposedly killed, telling the guy he was going to kill him. Logan is a good guy and he had no beef with Snake Eyes.” The old man crossed his arms over his shoulders. “I thought Logan had disappeared, gone into hiding. I didn’t think I’d ever have to turn this over to anyone.”
“Do you only have the one copy?” Quentin asked, a smirk in his voice.
The bartender nodded. “But you can get Billy to make you a copy, if you need it. He’s down on 5th Avenue; has a video repair place. He’s trustworthy.”
Quentin grinned. “Thank you, sir. Yah have a good day.”
Francesca clasped the tape to her chest, and it warmed her all the way through. Perhaps there was some hope in this fool’s errand. Now she just needed to find someone at the police station to listen to her. “How hard can that be?”
# # #
Logan
Logan glanced down at the photos of him, prominently displayed, next to Francesca in a gossip magazine. “You two look cute together,” the detective said, a wicked smile on his mouth. Logan rolled his eyes, his jaw tightening as he kept his mouth closed around the angry retort. “So what made you run to her?”
“She’d broken down on the side of the road, and I gave her a ride back home,” Logan answered smoothly, his eyes locked with the wall behind the policeman. He felt nervous; cops always made him nervous. But he repeated his mantra over and over in his head, trying to keep cool. “Do what Francesca would want you to do ...”
The interrogation room looked just like they showed on TV; ugly drop ceilings, a single chair and table in the center. The police had offered him coffee and water, both of which he had declined politely.
One of them leaned in towards Logan. “Why did you kill Snake Eyes, Logan? Was it a hit?”
Logan sighed. “I didn’t kill him. I barely knew him. Zook — I mean Jorge Conover — killed him, in hopes of pinning the murder on me and leaving me to rot in jail while he took over the MC.” Logan glanced around to see nothing but mistrust in their eyes. He added, “I’m telling you the truth.”
“We talked to this Zook; he insisted that you did it,” the detective said, then sat back in his chair, looking relaxed. But his black eyes watched Logan like a hawk.
Logan sat stock still in his chair, his mouth pulling down at the corners. This was going badly; what could he do to make them believe him? Their hard faces insisted they didn’t believe him, and no matter what he said, they wouldn’t change their minds. Sighing, he started over from the beginning, telling everything that happened that night, hoping they would be able to find a kernel of truth in his story that would break those hardened expressions. He told them how Zook had called him out to that warehouse. How they had gone shooting together at the shooting range the day before. How Zook had used gloves to keep his prints off it, and keep Logan’s intact. How Logan had run, knowing this would have been the reaction of the police.
Not a single face softened during his speech. Ice formed in his stomach as he watched them, every single one of him having already determined his guilt without a jury.
“You were wrong, Francesca. I wanted you to be right, but you were very wrong …”
“I’m not a hit man, anyway. If I really wanted someone knocked off, which I don’t, why would I do it myself when I have people I can order around?” he asked, flippantly, trying to dislodge the hopelessness spreading like freezer burn. It burned with cold, filling his veins with ice and pain. His heart burned with it.
But nothing he said seemed to get through to any of them. Feeling deflated, he stopped trying. They already had evidence piled against him, and nothing Logan could say could alter that.
“Forgive me, Francesca.”
With a heavy heart, he closed his mouth and didn’t open it again.
A man in a police uniform entered the room, whispered to the two detectives interviewing him, and then left abruptly. The detectives followed him out, leaving Logan alone in the room for what seemed like an eternity. A young looking woman in a brand new uniform was sent to look after him, and she stood by the door and pretended Logan didn’t exist. Even when he asked for water, his request fell on deaf ears. “Did something happen?” he asked the woman, trying to squash the tiny flame of hope that was growing in his chest. Maybe they found something to liberate him? But no, there was no way. Right? They weren’t even looking.
The young officer ignored him, staying at stoic attention against the wall by the door. She must have been ex-military to be able to stand so still for so long. All those drills seemed to be carved into her muscles, holding her as motionless as a person can be.
Logan quickly tired of watching her to see if she would move, so he started counting tiles on the ceiling, then tiles on the floor. Then the number of times his jailer blinked.
After a lifetime, Logan’s two detectives walked back into the room, looking bewildered. “Well, Mr. Pendergrass. You have some influential friends, don’t you?”
Logan blinked at them, unsure of what they meant.
“Someone named Quentin Maloney brought in some evidence that we still have to verify, but it looks like you just might just be getting out of this one.” The detective was frowning as he threw the case files he was carrying down on the table between them. “We’ll review it; if we find what we think we will, you just might have slipped out of the noose.” The officer looked unhappy about it, but he seemed determined to find out the truth at least. “For now, anyway.”
Logan felt hot, then cold, his mouth going dry. “What has Francesca done?” He knew if Quentin was involved, it had something to do with her. His heart jump started and came back to life, melting the ice in his chest.
Perhaps this will work out after all.