Crank picked up his phone and glanced at the display. He didn’t recognize the number, so he went with a formal tone and style of answer. “Legion Security.”
“Charles Lee, please,” the voice on the other end of the line said.
“Speaking.”
“Mr. Lee. This is Detective Sergeant Todd Willers. How are you today?”
Crank pressed a finger to his lips to indicate silence to the two other men in the room, and then put the phone on speaker and placed it down on the table. Whenever the police called, he liked to keep his club brothers in the loop to help keep their stories straight.
“I’m doing fine, Detective. How may I help you?” Crank asked as Shiv and Pecan, his vice president and sergeant at arms, listened in.
“I’d like to talk to you about Thomas Howell. Can you come down to the station this afternoon and answer a few questions?”
“Who’s Thomas Howell?”
“The guy you roughed up at the concert a few nights ago.”
“Oh. That guy. What about him?”
“Mr. Howell wants to file assault and battery charges against you.”
Crank rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding me? For what?”
“He claims you attacked him.”
Crank closed his eyes and counted to five. “I’m sorry Detective. I’m kind of in the middle of something at the moment, but if you want to stop by my house later this evening, I will speak to you then.”
“This won’t take long, Mr. Lee,” the detective insisted.
“Good, but I’m still in the middle of something. I’ll be home about five if you want to talk to me then, or I can stop by the station Monday.”
“Give me your address,” the detective replied, his voice firm and his annoyance clear. He probably wasn’t used to people not jumping when he barked. Crank smiled and gave him the address. “I’ll be there about five.”
“I’ll be there,” Crank told him and then ended the call.
“What’s that about, you think?” Shiv asked.
“I don’t know,” Crank said. “The cops want to ask me some more questions about that spherical asshole the other night.”
Pecan shook his head and chuckled. Crank used the term, “spherical asshole” to refer to someone who was an asshole no matter how you looked at them.
“Knuckles told me what happened. He’s lucky he didn’t get his ass kicked,” Pecan threw in.
Crank grinned again. “I thought about it. Anyway, back to this problem. Any idea where to pick this guy up?”
Shiv grinned. “The dweeb works for Andy’s Burgers. I followed him home. I think he must live with his parents because there’s no way he could afford that place on what he makes flipping burgers.”
“Okay, so paying him a visit at home isn’t going to work. Pick him up when he gets off work?” Crank suggested.
“That’s probably out best shot,” Pecan agreed. “Stuff him in the Tahoe and dump him off outside town somewhere. By the time he walks to a phone, we’ll have our alibis.”
Crank thought it over. “Okay, let’s get Monkey on the Tahoe. See if he can squeeze another job out of what we have on hand, even if it’s a couple of different colors. This job doesn’t pay much, so I want to keep the cost down. As soon as he has it ready, we’ll make our move.”
“I’ll let him know,” Shiv said.
“What are we going to do about an alibi?” Pecan asked. “It’s going to be hard to setup since we don’t know when we’re going to move.”
They talked the problem around for a few minutes.
“Why don’t we pick our day and have a party in the park? That way, we can take all day if we need too,” Shiv proposed. “That’s always a good fallback position.”
Crank nodded. Shiv’s plan was a good one, but they didn’t want to go to that well too often. The cops would get suspicious if every time someone got roughed up the Legion were partying.
“Probably won’t have a choice this time, and it’s been, what, a year since we did that?”
Shiv nodded a few times. “Something like that.”
“Okay, let’s plan it that way,” Crank told them. “We’ll get the Tahoe sprayed, then pick our day and get a place reserved. We’ll make our move after that. Anything else?”
Pecan, Shiv, and Crank glanced between themselves.
“Okay, let’s run with it,” he said as he banged his hands on the table. “Who’s up in the rotation?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to check,” Pecan replied.
Crank glanced at his phone to check the time. “Shit. I’m going to have to go if I’m going meet this detective.”
Shiv snickered. “You’re the one who always wants to be in the thick of things.”
Crank grimaced. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his brothers, but he wouldn’t ask them to hang their nuts out if he wasn’t willing to do the same. That’s why he always handled the face time with potential customers and was always involved in the dirty work. If he was going to put someone’s cock in a vice, his was going to be in there too.
“You want to handle this? I won’t mind,” Crank asked.
Shiv waved his hands in front of him. “I offered to go sort out the drunk, but you left me to deal with those fucks and their pissing contest. It serves you right.”
Crank chuckled. Shiv was right. He’d left him backstage dealing with two bands that were threatening to kick each other’s ass or walk off, as the show promoter tried to calm everyone down. He’d thought he was getting the better deal that night when Tater had called for assistance, but now it had come back and bitten him in the ass.
“Yeah, well, fuck you too,” Crank said with a comical sneer.
Shiv chuckled and scratched his cheek with his middle finger.
Pecan grinned. “See, if you had just shot the fucker, then he wouldn’t be pressing charges.”
Crank shook his head but cut a wry smile. Pecan’s solution to everything was to shoot them. Maybe he should start listening to him. “I have to go. I’ll call one of you if I have to make bail.”
Shiv and Pecan both snickered as Crank pushed back from the table, leaving his two best men in “church,” their nickname for the meeting room, to work out the details of intercepting Greg Tuttle and putting the fear of God into him for harassing his ex-girlfriend.
Crank stepped outside the Fallen Legion’s clubhouse. It was a typical Fall day in Amberton, crisp with a bright, warm sun and a partly-cloudy azure sky. He swung his leg over his Softail Deluxe and thumbed the big Harley into life.
He rumbled through town on White Horse Road until he reached his subdivision—an older neighborhood full of houses built in the 60s and 70s. He pulled into his drive then stopped and killed the rumbling V-Twin, leaving the bike in gear so it wouldn’t try to roll down the hill and tumble to its side. With the bike now stable, he dismounted and typed in the four-digit code to raise the garage door. As the door rumbled up, he remounted his hog, started it, and then pulled it into the garage. If he ever bought another house, he was going to make sure the driveway was either level or downhill into the garage. Having an uphill driveway sucked when riding a motorcycle because you always had to restart the machine just to ride it the last ten feet into the garage.
After he’d parked the bike beside his F-150, Crank sauntered into his house, slapping the controller to lower the garage door as he passed. He didn’t know when Detective Sergeant Willy, or whatever his name was, was going to arrive, so he pulled out a beer and flopped onto his recliner to wait for him.
He didn’t have to wait long before his doorbell rang just after five o’clock. Crank sat his beer on the counter that served as a visual divider between the living room and kitchen and then opened the door.
“Mr. Lee? Detective Sergeant Todd Willers.”
“Detective,” Crank said, his tone curt.
Willers was older, perhaps fifty, with thinning gray hair. He was at least fifty pounds overweight and was wearing a pair of tan Dockers with a dark blue pullover shirt and comfortable looking shoes. His badge and sidearm were as prominently displayed as his attitude.
“May I come in?”
Crank thought about making him stand at the door to ask his questions but then stepped back. “Want a beer?”
“Thank you, but I’m on duty.”
“So, what’s this all about?” Crank asked, directing the detective into his living room.
“The man at the concert is accusing you of assault and battery. I’m investigating his claims.”
“I see… Did he mention he was drunk and pulled a knife on me?”
“He said he wasn’t drunk and the knife wasn’t his.”
“What did the arresting officers say?”
“They documented that he was intoxicated, but the knife isn’t part of the arrest record.”
“So, what does this asshole say I did to him?”
“Mr. Howell claimed he was simply watching the concert when he was harassed by a member of Legion Security. When he protested, you arrived and without provocation, threw him to the ground.”
“Uh-huh,” Crank grunted. “I supposed he said the same thing about the officers who arrested him.”
The detective smiled. “No. He actually admitted to that. He said he was upset by how he was being treated, and how the police weren’t concerned about you assaulting him and had been only listening to your side of the story. Apparently, you and the senior officer on the scene know each other?”
“Not really. I’ve spoken to Ed a couple of times over the years on business. So basically… what was his name again?”
“Thomas Howell.”
“So, Tom tried to run because he felt like he was being railroaded… all because I happened to know one of the police officers?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“And you believe him?”
“I don’t believe anything. I’m simply following up on a complaint to make sure you acted in accordance with the law.”
Crank sucked on his teeth a moment. “I don’t know what to tell you. Did you read the arrest report? Didn’t that tell you what happened?”
“It told me what you said happened.”
“You want me to tell it to you?”
“Do you stand by your story?”
“That the guy was drunk, causing problems and we asked him to leave? And when he wouldn’t we attempted to escort him out, and that’s when he became combative? Then, as we were escorting him out, he pulled a knife on us, and I disarmed him and held him for the cops? Yeah, I’ll stand by that.”
Detective Willers watched Crank for a moment. “You have anything to add?”
“There’s nothing else to add.” Crank wanted to add the prick should consider himself lucky he didn’t shove the knife up his ass but held his tongue knowing it wouldn’t help his case. The less involvement the Legion had with Amberton’s “finest,” the better.
“I think I have enough. Thank you for your time,” Willers said as he turned toward the front door.
Crank followed and opened it for him. “Tell me something,” he said as Willers stepped out onto the porch. “There’s more to this than some drunk asshole screaming about an assault. Who is this guy?”
Willers paused at the door. “It’s not who he is, it’s who his father is. His father is Chester Howell.” When Crank drew a blank face, Willers continued. “He’s the Majority Leader in the State Senate.”
“Ah, I see,” Crank said. “He wants somebody’s head, so you’re going to give him mine?”
“I told you, Mr. Lee. I’m simply following up a complaint.”
“And what have you found?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that. I’ll turn the results of my investigation over to the DA, and he’ll decide what charges, if any, will be filed.”
Crank once again bit his tongue; this time so he didn’t tell Willers to have the DA go do something anatomically impossible. “Have a good evening, Detective.”
Willers nodded and walked back to his car—a plain white Dodge Charger that screamed cop. Crank stood on this front porch and watched until Willers disappeared down the road then went back inside and slammed the door. He walked over to the bar that divided the living room and kitchen and picked up the two cards he’d toss there after the concert. He dialed Ed’s number first, but when it went to voice mail, he hung up and tried Lana’s number.
“Hello?”
“Lana Winters?” he asked.
“Speaking.”
“This is Crank Lee. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Lee. What do you mean, ‘What’s going on?’”
“I was just paid a visit by a Detective Willers. You know anything about that?”
There was a long pause. “Yes,” she replied, her tone softer. “The guy you bounced Saturday night is the son of a state senator. He’s out for blood.”
“So the cops are throwing me under the bus?”
“No! Not at all!”
“No? Then why was Willers here? Why didn’t he just talk to you and your partner?”
“He did. Both Officer Callahan and I were interviewed yesterday. We told him—”
“So you covered you ass by giving him mine?” he interrupted.
There was another pause. “Are you finished? As I was going to say, both officer Callahan and I spoke to Willers, and I said I thought you used a minimum amount of force. I don’t know exactly what Ed told him, but I think it was more or less the same thing.”
“So why is Willers crawling up my ass?”
“Because he’s a good cop, and that’s what good cops do, Mr. Lee. He doesn’t take a person’s word for what happens until he can verify it. Look, from what I understand, the DA is leaning on the chief, and the chief wants to make sure this is squeaky clean. So, we have to do this by the book, and that means someone has to follow up. Did you lie to us about what happened?”
“No.”
“Then it’s clearly self-defense, and you don’t have anything to worry about. We told Willers exactly what happened, including how you assisted us when he tried to make a break for it.”
“Why didn’t you tell him about the knife?”
“I did. I think Ed did too. But we couldn’t enter it into evidence because you didn’t press charges and Howell claimed it wasn’t his. It was cataloged in as a lost and found.”
Crank was quiet for a moment, thinking. “I’m sorry I came on so strong. I thought you and your partner were trying to save your asses by giving him mine.”
“Maybe next time you’ll give us the benefit of the doubt until you have all the facts.”
Crank’s face twisted as he mentally winced. “You’re right. I should have asked before I assumed you were fucking me over.” He glanced at the kitchen clock. “Buy you dinner and a beer as an apology?”
There was another long pause. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. Have you had dinner?”
“No.”
“Then let me make it up to you. Crow goes down a little easier with a beer. You pick the place.”
Lana twittered out a laugh then fell silent again, and Crank thought she was going to turn him down flat. “Okay. How about Sally’s?”
“Is that the place on Elder, by the old Ford dealership?”
“That’s the place.”
“Okay, I know it. Meet you there around seven?”
“Sure. Thank you,” she said, though she still didn’t sound sure.
Crank nodded. “Only one helping of crow, though, okay?”
She laughed again; he liked the sound of it—sweet, honest, and feminine, not a sound he expected to hear from a cop. “I’ll think about it.”
Crank grinned. “Good enough.”
After he’d hung up, he glanced at the clock again. If he hurried, he’d have time to shower. As he made his way to the bathroom, he just couldn’t shake the sound of Lana’s honeyed voice from his ears.
For the first time, in a good while, Crank realized he’d just asked a woman out on a date… How the hell had that happened?