Dominic
“The beaches, man, the beaches!” I insisted for the thousandth time. “That’s where I should be heading.”
“I know, Dom. I know,” my oldest friend and partner in crime, Dorian, sighed. “But you gotta do it. It’s in the rules. Then, after that, you’ll be done.”
“Done…” I murmured, letting the word slip out of me with a long line of cigarette smoke. I closed my eyes and let the cool mountain air touch my skin. Let the feel of the earth beneath me, and the knowledge of the view before me, lull me into a state of comfort.
It did not work.
It used to. This spot, with Dorian at my side, my bike idling between my thighs, used to make me feel at peace. Well, as “at peace” as one can feel in the sad, sorry state of the world.
But now, I longed for tropics. The only vistas I wanted before me should be oceans. The only smell of chemicals from a drink in my hand. The only blaze from the campfire by my feet.
“I’m too recognizable,” I continued complaining. “Someone in the bar will recognize me.”
Dorian did not bother to ask if I was afraid. He knew better than anyone that nothing––certainly not death––frightened Dominic Molina. I was worried for my gang, the Broken Spires. It was my duty as their president to protect them.
“So what if you’re recognized?” countered Dorian, flicking his own cigarette into the wind. “You can handle any of those scumbags.”
I frowned sourly, much too experienced to let paltry praise flatter me. I gazed down at my hands: killer’s hands they were, as riddled with scars as a fisherman’s, with tattoos from the knuckles up the wrists. Though no one could see it, I also had a line of skulls towering up my spine. Thirty-two of them. One for every man I have killed in this biker’s war.
“Dorian, I don’t want to make it thirty-three.”
He did not have to ask what I meant.
I closed my eyes again, envisioning myself not on a roadside mountaintop, but on white sands. Aruba. The Caribbean. Somewhere like that. A place where my tattoos could be art, and not a sign of violent status. Maybe grab a woman or four. Spend some time fucking. Drinking. Relaxing.
I was sure some of my biking peers believed this dream of mine meant I’d gone soft, but that wasn’t it at all. My job as president was just that––a job. I reveled in the strategy, and the planning, but never the outright violence. Now, it was time for me––at the lofty age of thirty-two––to retire.
“It’ll be fine, Dom,” said Dorian, patting me on the shoulder. “Just go in, do a little recon, and out. I’ll be nearby if things get hairy. Alright?”
I sighed. I really didn’t have a choice. The Broken Spires depended on me. I would never let them down.
In silence, we finished the remainder of our cigarettes. Then we ignited the engines of our bikes.
The roar of them echoed through the mountains like the cry of a savage animal, and suddenly, I felt it all come back to me: the thrill of violence, of bloodlust, of outsmarting the opponent. I might have been ready to leave it, but that did not mean I had entirely forgotten why I had once loved it.
Together, we plowed our way down the mountain, into town.
# # #
From the outside, the goal of my mission––a biker’s bar called the Bear’s Cave––seemed like any other local bar: full of floozies, and overweight, middle-aged men trying to relive the glory days.
That is what the ignorant would perceive.
Those accustomed to motorcycle culture, however, would see much more: the badges, sewn into the leather jackets of the customers, whose hidden meaning indicated rank and violence. The secret compartments on the flanks of motorcycles shaped quite conveniently for a handgun or a pistol. Similar bulges in men’s blue jeans, hidden from the naïve but clear as day to those accustomed to concealed weaponry. There was also a certain silence, a watchfulness, in the bartender as I entered. He gave me a look that lingered a little too long, but did not say anything. I was permitted to sit down and order a drink.
Some bikers refused to drink on the job. They thought it would soften their reflexes. Others preferred to get uproariously drunk, thinking it made them braver. I, however, preferred the middle ground: not ordering a drink aroused suspicion, ordering too many aroused stupidity.
I settled for a whiskey, alone in the glass. As I sipped it, I took a look around.
This bar, the Bear’s Cave, was enemy territory. In preparation for this mission, I had let the stubble on my cheeks and jaw grow out. Hide my strong chin, which I’d once used to break the nose of the ex-president of the Crooked Jaws, the bike club that laid claim to this bar. Hide the long scar that ran from my temple to my jawline; the one that the current Jaws president, Marco “La Gancho” Herrera, gave me in a knife fight long ago.
Do not worry. He was, by far, worse off after that battle.
Still, it was a weak disguise, so I did my best to keep my face low over my drink, creating an appearance of silent nervousness––the expression most newbies wear when realizing that they are way in over their heads. By appearing nonthreatening, yet big enough not to be easy prey, I hoped whatever Crooked Jaws were in here would leave me alone. Without even turning my head to look around, I could spy three of them.
They did not seem to be “on duty”–– metaphorically speaking, anyway. They were clustered in a side booth, drinking large beers and guffawing with each other. Every now and again, one would reach out and pluck the poor, bruised bottom of a passing waitress.
Though I knew with certainty that these guys would not provide me with anything useful, I sipped my drink and listened closely.
“Did you see that faggot squirm when I laid into him, Tony?” One asked, punching his buddy in the arm.
“I can’t believe he cried,” wheezed Tony, laughing so hard that his own eyes were leaking.
“You’re lucky you didn’t get in trouble with the boss,” the third one muttered, grim over his beer. “You know we’re not supposed to cause trouble at that end of the neighborhood.”
My ears perked. “Boss” could only mean one person: La Gancho. And yet, what neighborhood did he mean? The Crooked Jaws had no issue causing problems around here.
“I don’t like working for that asshole,” the first one muttered. I smiled. Dissension in an opponent’s ranks was always satisfying to hear. But then, he said something that surprised me. “Always going on about the appearance of legality and the importance of subtlety, and all the college-egghead crap.”
“Thinks he’s better than us,” complained Tony.
Legality? Subtlety? Egghead? Now, this did not at all sound like La Gancho. I would take arrogance from him, but academic superiority? No. The only education La Gancho had was given to him in his father’s bike shop, then on the blood-spattered streets.
“I think,” I realized, “they are talking about someone else.”
A clue! Perhaps something that would help us solve the mysteries of the Jaws’ very strange behavior lately.
As discreetly as I could, I shifted my chair closer to their booth, straining to hear every word. They were drunk, and spoke loudly, but so did everyone else at the bar.
“We’ll just have to be careful,” one said as I approached. “The time will come soon, and—wait! Who is that?”
All of a sudden, all three of them erupted from their seats. I froze, not out of fear, but the way a chameleon freezes when it is about to camouflage. If they suspected me, the worst thing I could do if appear guilty. Still, like a snake, my hand flashed to the bulge against my hip. Where my .45 was hidden.
“Hey, you!” I heard one call. I slipped it from its holster, cocked the trigger, and–
“Wow, man! It’s been forever!”
I chanced to look around. A fourth male had joined the first three, clapping the men on the backs and grinning. He sat down, and the group ordered him a beer.
I breathed. My gun slipped back into its holster.
“Come on, Dom,” I scolded myself. “You’re getting way too edgy. The last thing you want to do is start a shootout in this bar. There are innocents here.”
Man, I was so done. Done with the constant suspicion. Done with premeditating my every move, only to have so many of my plans erupt in brutal conflicts and exchanges of force.
I’d earned my time to relax. I’d fought for it, blood, tooth, and nail.
Feeling disgruntled, I wrested my attention from the gaggle of idiot Crooked Jaws and returned it to my drink. I would continue surveillance, sure, but, for this moment at least, I would simply enjoy my whiskey.
And yet, it tasted of violence. Of knives drawn at local bars. Of shattered bone. Of territories claimed, and then defended. A normal person would be afraid to be in the situation I was: deep in enemy territory, and a well-known opponent to boot. But again, I was not afraid. The worst these bozos could do to me is kill me, and that, I bet, would be in a wholly uncreative manner.
No, I was tired. I sipped my whiskey. I yawned. I sipped more whiskey. I yawned again. Increasingly, I became convinced that I was wasting my time. Those buffoons in the booth would yield nothing useful, and the bartender, meanwhile, was inscrutable as the drinks he served. It was not like anyone would reprimand me for leaving. I was my own boss. It was only my sense of duty that kept me here.
“One more heist,” I muttered to myself, ordering another drink. “One more, and then I’m free.”
I spent the next hour drinking and dreaming of that freedom. It would have been hard to imagine a mind such as mine thinking of anything else.
That is, until she walked through the door.