Danny
Danny, Thorn, and Tyke had all been parked at a truck stop across from the turnoff to the Free Jackals' clubhouse for the last couple hours. Trucks came in and trucks went out, leaving only exhaust fumes and empty bottles of caffeine pills behind to mark their passing.
Karl and Jed had been picked for the shitty recruit duty, sitting up on the back road that looked down over the small compound the rival gang maintained. Up there, in the woods, on stakeout duty with a pair of binoculars and a cell phone, just waiting for Adam to show his ugly mug. Jed had to be with him because he was the only one, besides Danny, that would be likely to recognize him at a distance.
Tyke idly picked through a bag of spicy pork rinds, wiping the orange dust on the leg of his jeans every now and then. “Think he'll come out of there sometime today?” he asked, stuffing more of the things into his mouth.
“Dunno,” Thorn said as he rubbed the scar tissue on the back of his hand. “Wouldn't if I were him.”
“Lots of things you wouldn't do if you were him,” Danny reminded him. “He thinks he can get away with this. He's cocky now, just like he was in the past, and his temper's gonna get the best of him. Mark my words.”
Thorn shrugged. “Might be the case. I mean, he's been able to do this shit for a while now, and so he just keeps on pushing and pushing, escalating the situation.”
“Like a fucking rabid dog,” Tyke added.
Danny nodded. And rabid dogs needed to be put down before they do more damage.
“Just wish he'd hurry up and do whatever it is he's meaning to do,” Tyke said.
“What's that ol' saying?” Thorn asked. “Patience is a virtue?”
“Never knew Patience,” Tyke growled through a wide smile, “but I think I fucked her sister once.”
Danny chuckled as his cell phone began to ring. He checked the ID, saw that the number was Jed's.
“Quiet down, guys,” Danny said as he hit answer and put the phone to his ear. “Hey, what's up?”
“Got a group of Jackals heading your way. Pretty sure Adam is with them.”
“You sure?”
“About as sure as I'm gonna get from this far away with just binoculars. I recognize his bike, that's for sure.”
“Thanks, Jed. We'll run 'em down.”
He hung upand told the other guys.
“Alright,” Thorn said. “We pull out, tail 'em, figure out where they're going. First time they stop, we swoop in and grab Adam.”
“Sounds like a plan,”
Danny and Tyke saddled up and started their bikes, and Thorn hopped in his pickup. If they were going to capture Adam, they had to have somewhere to toss him so they could get him back to the warehouse.
They pulled up behind one of the parked semis and waited. They couldn't go until the Free Jackals chose their direction, left or right. Then the Fallen Knights would pull out and follow after them. Leaving any earlier, or just parking out in the open and waiting for them, would be a sure fire tip-off. And they couldn't have that.
Danny sat astride his bike, listening intently to every passing car. Their tires hummed and sang as they cruised down the asphalt, the drivers' destinations known only to them. This wasn't the busiest stretch of road, but traffic was bustling enough that Danny quickly lost track of the number of vehicles that passed by.
A few minutes passed before the three men were able to hear the distant rumbling of a pack of motorcycles coming up the cutoff, to the highway. They idled there for about thirty seconds, maybe picking a direction to go, maybe checking for tails, before taking off with a great roar of their engines.
That was their cue. Thorn, Tyke, and Danny pulled out from behind the semi and headed up to the highway. Danny frantically looked both ways, his eyes squinting against the sun's glare. There, off in the distance, he saw them. Four bikes, disappearing into the distance. He pointed to their fading forms and shouted to his buddies.
The three of them took off onto the highway and opened up as they began their chase. They didn't want to get too close, but they needed to make sure their prey didn't get too far. They didn’t want to lose them, either. With Danny in the lead, the three men trailed their rivals.
Danny gritted his teeth, grinding them together, to the point where his jaw was almost sore, as they followed behind the Free Jackals. All the time they tailed the Jackals, they stayed a small spec on the horizon. Soon, though, the bikers pulled off at Baby Dolls, the shittiest strip club in the county.
Danny signaled for them to pull over at an abandoned lot a couple hundred yards away from the strip club parking lot. Tyke and Thorn pulled over behind him, bringing their bike and truck to a stop in the old used car dealership.
“What's the plan?” Danny yelled over his bike's idling engine.
“Call Jed and Karl,” Thorn said from the cab of his pickup, “and have 'em meet up with us here. They shouldn't take much longer than a couple lap dances.”
“Man,” Tyke said, “you ain't been to Baby Dolls in a while. They play those songs damn near double-time now.”
Thorn laughed. “Alright, three lap dances. You happy?”
“More like four,” Tyke said, laughing. “Dunno how you'd be able to stand that with these day-dancers, though. Not unless they were pouring that whiskey with a pretty free hand.”
Danny's hands tightened on the grips of his bike. “Hey!” he barked. “Come on, focus here, guys! Quit messing around!”
Thorn's face went sober at the admonishment. “Nah, you're right. We gotta keep our head in the game, here. Danny, call the boys and let's get this show on the road.”
Danny pulled out his phone and called his brother back. He told them where they were, and said they'd be waiting for them before they moved in on Adam.
“Alright,” Thorn said. “Now, we begin the sitzkrieg.”
“What the hell's that?” Tyke asked.
“Ain't you ever read a goddamned book?” Thorn asked him. “It's what the French called the war before the Germans invaded, when they were just sitting on their asses.”
“Calm before the storm,” Danny said, nodding.
“Hurry up and wait,” Tyke said, his face somber again. “The Army credo.”
They didn't have to wait long, though. Not ten minutes later, Karl and Jed came roaring up on their bikes.
“Y'all ready to do this?” Jed asked as he pulled up beside them.
“Born ready,” Tyke said, clasping hands with Danny's brother.
“Well, let's go, then,” Thorn barked as he started up his old pickup “Get this show on the road.”
The five men pulled back out onto the highway, with Thorn's old truck leading the way as they motorcaded the short distance down to the shitty little strip club. When they pulled in, the parking lot was nearly empty. Just a handful of cars were scattered across the gravel lot, with four motorcycles parked near the entrance.
“One of those his bike?” Danny asked his brother as the Fallen Knights drew up and killed their engines.
“That's it,” Jed replied, pointing to a chopper with flames and skulls airbrushed down the side of its fuel tank. “Recognize those skulls anywhere.”
They swung their legs over the bikes and Thorn hopped down from the pickup. All five men steeled themselves for the coming fight. It was going to be bad, it was going to be vicious. It was going to be bloody.
Danny turned to his brother and slapped a hand down on his shoulder. “You got this?”
Jed returned the gesture, slapping both hands down on Danny's shoulders as he leveled his gaze on his brother and looked back with the same intensity. “You know I fucking got this. I want that motherfucker just as bad as you for what he did to me.”
Danny nodded, satisfied that his head was in the game, too.
“This is for our family,” Danny said. “This is for the Reynolds, not just the Fallen Knights. Fuck this guy.”
“Right. Fuck 'em.”
Tyke stepped up beside them. “If you ladies are done with your pep rally, we'd like to go inside.”
Danny turned to him. “You just wanna see all those strippers,” he said, laughing despite the seriousness of the situation.
Tyke faked personal injury, touching his chest over his heart like Danny had just brutally stabbed him with his words. “I can't believe you'd make that sound like a bad thing, Danny. You know I've always been supportive of single mothers everywhere.”
“Haha,” Thorn said as he came up. “Let's get this thing over and done with. Remember, we spot Adam, we grab him, we drag him out. We persuade the bouncers and security not to intervene. Got it?”
They all agreed. “I got the bouncer,” Tyke said. “It's Thursday. I know a guy.”
“Good,” Danny said, then turned to lead the way.
They pushed through the double doors, and the sound washed over them like a tsunami. Fast new rock, Linken Park Danny thought, was playing at a crazed speed. They really did crank up the tempo on these, he realized, as they pushed through the second set of double doors and stepped into the dark, red-lit strip club.
A girl danced on stage under blue and red lights, her body swaying, thrusting, and grinding to the beat, but Danny ignored her and swept his eyes across the sparsely crowded club. There, off to the left of the stage. He saw them, four vest-wearing Free Jackals with two girls at their table. Or, rather, the girls were on their laps moving to the music, as they sat at the table.
Behind him, Tyke was slipping money to the bouncer and telling him to ignore the show that was about to start. He slipped the security guy a c-note and patted him on the back. As soon as he was done, the five of them began to make their way through the tables to the back of the bar, their feet sticking to the club floor with each step. Jed picked up his pace and came up beside Danny, wanting to be the first into the fray alongside his brother when the time came to drag Adam out of the seedy strip club.
Danny peered ahead through the dim, smoky club, trying to get a better look at the Jackals seated at that back table. He couldn't exactly tell if Adam was with them or not. But, at this distance, and in this lighting, none of the guys seated there matched his build.
Blue and red strobe lights flashed around them, and the DJ came over the speaker as the song ended. “Everybody give it up for Candy,” he said, really driving home that iconic DJ strip-club voice. “Give her a chance and she'll dance right into your hearts, guys. Up next we've got Moxy on the center stage, with her premiere dance. Everyone, let's welcome Moxy on her first day at Baby Doll's.”
Danny didn't glance towards Moxy, or the center stage as an old AC/DC song started up. He had a mild pang of regret that he and his MC brothers were about to put on more of a show than she ever would in this shithole dive.
He stepped closer, finally close enough to get a good look at all the guys seated around the side table.
Jed stepped up beside him, too. Danny could feel him going over the guys with his eyes, also.
As the two girls who'd just been dancing and grinding on their laps got up and left, the four Free Jackals swiveled their heads to meet the eyes of the Fallen Knights. All of them looked perplexed to see their rivals advancing like they were.
Danny looked over the faces of the quartet, his eyes flickering to each, realization slowly dawning on him. He shook his head. No, it couldn't be.
From beside him, Jed touched his arm and got in close. “He's not here, man!” he yelled over the sound of the sped-up, “You Shook Me All Night Long.”
Danny glanced from the four Jackals to his brother, then back again. He was right. Adam wasn't here. He balled up his hands into fists of rage, clenching and unclenching till his knuckles popped under the strain. Motherfucker had tricked them like it was nothing! Again!
He whirled back to the others and shook his head, eyes lit like a bonfire. “He's not fucking here!” he screamed.
“What?” Thorn yelled back over the music, his hand cupped to his ear.
He didn't need to start a fight here, not over nothing. And, if they stuck around, that's exactly what was going to happen. Danny shook his head and pushed through the confused men, making a beeline back to the front door and out into the afternoon sun.
The light blinded him for a moment, stunning him. He shook off his confusion, walking over to their bikes, half-dazed with the change in light and his own rage building up inside him.
Jed was so close on his heels that he caught the double doors before they could slam behind Danny.
“He fucking tricked us!” Danny yelled as he climbed onto his bike.
“Who?” Thorn yelled as he came out.
Danny started up his bike. “That motherfucker Adam!”
“He must have given his bike to one of the guys to ride for the day,” Jed sputtered through his anger and confusion. “I know that's his bike!”
“Doesn't matter if it is or not,” Danny boomed over the grumbling of his bike's engine. “Cause he ain't fucking here!” He took off, throwing rocks and gravel everywhere, and high-tailed it out of the parking lot.
Adam might not have been at Baby Dolls, like they'd thought. But now he had a pretty good idea of where he was.