Leo followed up to that point and gave her a kiss. “Think I’ll go home and change, get in some pool table time. Dust off some things as well. Want to meet up and head for the club at about eight?”
“That would really be good. It will give me a chance to catch back up on some things,” she agreed.
“You worked like a demon yesterday for four hours in that cafe,” he reminded her.
“That was catching up for Friday, but this is Monday, lover, a whole new world in the work force,” she teased.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that, and happy I don’t. See you about eight,” he told her, and he kissed her again.
He pulled out, crossed the street, and zipped between the fence posts onto the dirt track leading to his house, a little rooster tail of dirt curving up behind him. As soon as he pulled up to his house, she skipped up to her porch and went inside her own, feeling like life was new.
She wanted to call Yvette and tell her all about her weekend of sex, sushi, and sleep, but she wasn’t sure that telling her that Leo was her lover over the phone was a good idea. But then, maybe ambushing her with it at the club out in public wasn’t that great of an idea either.
After several minutes of thought, she decided she would tone down the wondrous sex part and give her friend the heads up.
“Hey Yvette, how you doing?”
“Alright, considering. What you been up to?”
“I just got back from a weekend with Leo,” she said, jumping right in.
“Leo Hampton?” Yvette asked.
“Yes, Leo Hampton.”
“You should break that off. The man has no balls and is dirty as hell,” she told her flatly.
“Leo told me the whole story, all the way to the point where Crash tells the courts, ‘Fuck the bros and the hoes,’ the hoes being you and me. But that shit is four years old, Yvette, and I’m really hoping it’s not going to fuck with things between you and me. I love you.”
“Hell, fuck what he did four years ago, Bev. How about what he’s been doing since then?” Yvette said.
“What’s that?”
“He’s running drugs for the cartel, and not just any cartel. He’s running it for fucking Nomar Vasquez of all fucking people, which shows he could care less about this club, its people, or what we care about, as long as the cash is good. And when he goes down for this, which he will, if you’re with him, with the amounts we’re talking, you’ll be going down too, sister. The man has a rotten fucking core.”
“How do you know this about the cartel? And what makes Nomar so especially bad?” Bev asked.
“Yeah, you probably don’t know about Woody and Emma. Before your time. They were long-time members, founding members you might say. Damn cute couple, too. Well, anyway, back nearly a year ago now, when they were selling pot legal in San Diego? You remember that?”
“Yeah, sure, I went and got my green card and everything,” Bev said.
“Well, Woody and Emma, they get in real early on that, having great connections and both real good at business, and they open seven stores in prime locations. And bam! They are making money so fast they have to hire people to count it. They hired me to work a counter at one of those stores. Making $20 an hour with them. It was sweet. Most I’ve ever made in my life.”
“Alright, I don’t think I like where this is going,” Bev said, sitting down on her couch.
“Well, if you are thinking it is going to shit, you’re right. Men from Nomar’s cartel, they come down and tell Woody and Emma that they are going to buy into their little chain. Woody tells them to fuck off, and Danny sends down shifts of guards to work the stores for them, which seemed to put a stop to it. Except one night, the guard is late coming in for the 8 to 2am shift, and when he gets there, he finds the counter girl killed, Woody gutted, and Emma raped and killed. Next to her is this little Mexican flag, just to make sure we know who did it and how fast they operate.”
“Ah, shit,” Bev said putting her hand to her forehead. “So, what did Danny do?”
“He was going to make all the stores club stores, but then the DEA came in and closed all the stores with court orders and 48-hour notices. So it was done. Nomar’s cartel is too big for us to just go to war with. Danny’s pissed, but he can’t add to Woody and Emma’s deaths by throwing us into a bloodbath, and he tells the club this. But he also promises us that this shit ain’t over.”
“And you think Leo would work for these guys?” Bev asked.
“Think? Hell no, I know he is. Crash and I saw him two months ago, riding up to the Nomar hacienda with saddle bags full of coke.”
“How did you do that?”
“Crash spotted him on the freeway, and we followed him.”
“Why haven’t you told Danny about this then?”
“Well, because we really don’t know for sure, sure. And Crash’s told me to keep it quiet, because he’s going to reap some payback from Leo. So, I haven’t told anyone except for you right now. So, no, I’m not talking about shit four years old. I’m talking about shit yesterday, girl.”
“This is really hard for me to believe, Yvette. Seriously hard. I don’t mean to suggest you’re lying, or anything like that, but … shit.”
“Well, I kind of know what you mean, Bev,” she confessed. “I’ve sort of been secretly on Leo’s side through all of this. I have to stand by Crash or leave him, but Crash gets really stupid when Leo rolls back into town. But after seeing what we saw, with the coke bags and everything, I’m beginning to understand Crash’s view point about Leo.”
“I can’t make it jell. I can’t see Leo going against the club like that. Not like that. There’s something missing, and it’s a good thing you guys haven’t been passing it around, because this has the smell of something that will blow up in your face.”
“Smells like shit to me,” Yvette told her.
“At least we agree there,” Bev reasoned.
“Look, Bev, Leo is back, and that’s what Crash has been waiting for. If you’re with him when this comes out, you’re going to be driven off, or worse, just like Leo will be. This is seriously personal to the club and everyone in it, Bev. It’s a huge open wound that we’ve never been able to heal. Just stay away from him for a few days. Can’t you do that?” Yvette pleaded.
Beverly was quiet, biting her thumbnail and trying to think, trying to put together Leo on his bike and working for the Nomar Vasquez Cartel, after all they did, after Woody and Emma. “I just can’t. We’re going up to the club tonight, Yvette. I really pray that if Crash is there, for your sake, this doesn’t backfire on him.”
“I hope you are alright after, too, cause I really love you as well,” Yvette said, and then ended the call.
Her work day seemed shot for an hour after that phone call. Running drugs for Nomar Vasquez seemed to her to be the ultimate betrayal. Just suggesting to the club, or even just another member, that this was going on could be catastrophic to both parties.
Going through her riding purse that had her basic makeup in it, not that she wore much, she found Leo’s small brown glass vial of cocaine. She looked at the powder inside and wondered briefly if it was from Nomar Vasquez. Then she laid out a line and sent it into her brain. The focusing rush pushed all the worries and confusion aside, and she sat at her laptop, put her hair up in a ponytail, and started working like hellhounds were on her trail.
Eight hours flew by, and she was past the point in the novel that she had planned to be at by Thursday. Forcing herself to close the laptop, she set it on her little desk, then opened it again and set the backup system to run, copying all her work to her cloud drive. Then she walked away quickly and into the shower.
It felt like a battle night was brewing, so she chose jeans and a heavy t-shirt with her leather vest, which remained blank on the back. Her knife went on her left hip for a cross-body draw.
Her father taught her the draw, back when she was twelve, and set her to practicing it every day, over and over. Then she practiced it kneeling, and then on one knee, and then sitting cross legged, and then lying down. Over and over, every day, a hundred a day. Draw-slice-defend. Draw-slice-defend. As she drew the knife, she stepped forward, slashing her attacker with the same movement, and then going into her knife fighting stance, which was loose and easy to move from. Ready for anything, from any direction.
Draw-slice-defend.
She performed the movement now, in her room, with satisfying grace and speed. She sincerely hoped that she would not have to use it tonight, or any other night at the club.
She slipped into her thick riding boots just as a knock came at her door.
“Leo?”
“Yeah!”
“Come in, I’ll be right out,” she called, and then looked at herself in the mirror. She wouldn’t ask. No. If Yvette was wrong, it would be a terrible insult, and they just weren’t ready for a hit like that with them just starting out together. She wasn’t sure when asking such a question wouldn’t be terribly insulting, but she was sure she had never had a relationship that long so far.
“I talked to Yvette,” she started as she came out of her room. “She’s a bit upset, but I think it was more of a shock than an emotional thing.”
“Did she tell you to run as fast as you could?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact, yes. Or that was the meaning, anyway.”
“Are you?”
“I invited you in, didn’t I?”
“Yes, and I withdraw the question as being stupid and perhaps a little childish,” Leo told her.
“She also told me a story about a couple who were in the club? Woody and Emma?” she said, and she headed for the kitchen with her used coffee cup to wash it out, and to escape if escaping was necessary.
While she was running the water, he said, “It just popped up? The anniversary is not for several months.”
“She just said it was important club lore, and that it would help me understand the club and its actions more clearly,” Bev lied, and then turned around to leave the kitchen.
“Well, she’s right. It is very important to the club, and Danny has not forgotten, nor forgiven. He won’t, either, until he can figure out a method of reprisal, but even then, it won’t be forgive and forget,” Leo mused, his voice thoughtful but with the hint of a storm.
“I think it was me mentioning the cocaine you left for me that sparked the story,” Bev told him, and without knowing why, she was certain that this man, the one in her living room right now, would never, ever, work for Nomar Vasquez. “Let’s ride, lover,” she said with a smile, and she took his arm.
He kissed her outside, and it felt smooth and strong and honest. He wasn’t hiding anything from her that he might be ashamed of — nothing.
She decided that Crash and Yvette simply didn’t see what they thought they saw. She wouldn’t go so far as to say Yvette was making it up, but what they saw simply wasn’t right.
The spring air was a bit chilly, and she was glad she had chosen to wear her thick leather jacket. They rode slightly staggered with Leo in front and her following on the other side of the lane. He rode fast, as if he were riding into something and was going to meet it head on.
We are. We are riding into something, and I’m going with him.