“Alright, brother. I’ll be back in six months. I trust you will have taken care of whatever Saul has sent you here for by then,” Compton told him as he showed him around his small cabin on the edge of town.
“I hope so. I guess if I haven’t, I’ll have him to answer to, huh?”
“Oh, damn. Yeah, you will. Let’s hope you get it done for him. He can be brutal when he feels you let him down.”
“So can I,” Grant said with a grin.
“I’ll bet you can, brother. Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to who is more brutal,” Compton replied, turning his head toward the sound of a horn blowing outside. “Alright. That’s my ride to the airport. See you in six months. Don’t forget to feed Spot.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Grant laughed, glancing in the direction of the goldfish bowl by the door where “Spot” was swimming about without a care in the world.
“If you do, just replace him before I get back. I don’t wanna know,” Compton laughed, grabbing his bags and heading for the front door. “You know how to find me if you need anything.”
“Yep,” Grant replied.
Once Compton was gone, he looked around him. It wasn’t a bad little place, bit of a bachelor pad, but cozy and warm. There was already a fire going, so he added some wood to it, made himself a sandwich and grabbed a beer from the fridge before settling down in the sofa to find something on the big screen TV that sat to one side of the large den. This was his place until Compton returned. Until then, he was to have nothing to do with the club. Instead, his job was to pass himself off as a loner, the wolf the Silver Wolves had denied. His job was to use the time to get them to give him another shot.
Up until the attack on their clubhouse, he had not been sure how he was going to do that, but now he had a very good idea. Tomorrow, he would begin working his plan. Tonight, it was Netflix and chill. Drifting off in front of the tube a while later, he slept peacefully for a while, but awoke in the early morning hours disoriented and confused in his new surroundings. The remnants of the recurring dream that always came drifted away as the fog in his head began to clear.
He climbed off the sofa and made his way to Compton’s bedroom, dozing off for a few more hours until the sun filtered through the blinds and woke him. He crawled out of bed, feeling tired from a restless sleep and padded out to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water before retrieving his unpacked bags from inside the front door. After a shower, he slipped on his robe and began to unpack them, mingling his things in with Compton’s in a way that they all seemed the property of one individual. Once that was done, he did a walk through of the house, making sure there was nothing that made it seem as if he wasn’t the natural occupant of the cabin.
Putting a handful of photos and cards he found scattered around into his now empty suitcase, he locked it and slipped it under some other things in the closet so that it was hidden. Another walk through assured him that he was good to go, so he got dressed and headed out to his bike. It could be a long day if his efforts proved fruitless, but he had been doing some recon and could only hope for the best. Roaring down the road toward town, he parked down the street in the lot belonging to a local feed and seed, then walked down the sidewalk to the public library and went inside.
“I’d like to apply for a library card,” he told the white-haired woman behind the counter.
He flashed her a brilliant smile as she looked up at him, studying his clothes for a moment before slowly pulling out a piece of paper and handing it to him.
“Fill this out and bring it back to me with your ID. I assume you are a local resident.”
“I am.”
Grant did as she asked, filling it out quickly and handing it back to her, along with the very convincing photo driver’s license that had served him well since he had arrived here. One of the perks of having friends in low places was the ability to acquire things that might not necessarily be legal, but were realistic enough in appearance to pass in most transactions.
“You still live at this address?”
“Oh, no. I moved. I live at 763 Palm Field Road now.”
“You need to get that changed on your license. You get pulled over, they’ll ticket you for not having them updated,” she remarked as she entered the address into her system.
“I’ll do that.”
Of course, he wouldn’t. The address he had given her was Compton’s and if he got pulled over and they ran the license, he was in for a lot more than just a ticket. A fake ID would be the last thing they were concerned about. It would be more like twenty to life once they figured out who he really was.
“Here you go. You can check out three books today and once you return those, you’ll be able to check out up to a dozen at a time.”
“That’ll do me,” he replied, taking the small piece of plastic she offered to him. He could see that it had his name and address printed on it. Bingo. He walked directly to the section filled with books on art and checked out several selections about how to draw figures, returning to check them out before leaving and making his way further down the street to a small sidewalk cafe.
“Black coffee and a blueberry bagel with cream cheese,” he told the waitress.
She looked at him appreciatively with a big toothy grin. He was used to the reaction from women. He had always come across as the tough, rugged type in his motorcycle gear. Today, though, he was in a suit that made him look like he had walked straight off the pages of Gentleman’s Quarterly. No one was more aware of how impressive he looked than himself. It wasn’t that he was smug or cocky. Nothing like that, but he had spent a lifetime watching people and he knew how he affected them. Men were intimidated, and women were aroused. It served him well.
Grant opened the first book, one on creating proper facial proportions and waited.