The man in black stepped out of the back of the Mercedes, his dress shoes crunching on the gravel of the Crossroads parking lot. It was late morning here, but the day was already getting warmer in Yellow Rose than he was used to, the sun hanging high in the sky and beating down between the mountains on the thin valley where the small town sat. He set his briefcase down and wiped a cloth handkerchief across his high, damp forehead before refolding it and putting it back inside the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Briefcase back in hand, he made his way up to the cinder block building the locals affectionately referred to as a “dive bar.”
How quaint. Such a more appetizing name than the more fitting epithets that sprang to his mind: hellhole, pit of despair, heap, pigsty. Furthermore, he had no doubt the kind of men that inhabited this place. Bikers. More like trash, thugs, common criminals, or troglodytes.
He sat for three hours in the car, just to be brought to such a place as this. He doubted very seriously that any of the dining establishments in this small town would even pass a health inspection, let alone be fit for him to consume a meal within its confines.
He pulled the door open and stepped inside the darkness of the little watering hole, and sniffed the air delicately. Stale smoke and beer, that trash whiskey Americans referred to as bourbon, and sweat. It always smelled like sweat in a place like this, even during the winter months. It was like all these heathens could do was rut, sweat, grope, and eat their horrendous fast food. Burgers, tacos, and, of course, hot dogs.
How odious.
Although, he had to admit he was quite fond of nachos. Those were delightful in an odd, trashy way. All the cheese over tortilla chips, the ground beef and sour cream loaded on top so high that you sometimes wondered how they fit all the delectable accouterments on top. Just something about the mix of salty, savory, and crunchy made his mouth water even at the thought.
He stopped in the entryway, his heels clicking on the concrete floor, his briefcase hanging down at his side.
A big, heavy barkeep with a burly beard and even more burly body turned his attention from wiping down the countertop. “Hey buddy, we’re closed. Ain’t open till noon on Wednesdays.”
“Oh, no, you misunderstand,” the man in the suit said as he made his way to the bar, “I am not here for libation, good sir. I am here to speak to the top men in charge of this little establishment.”
The barkeep gave him a queer look. “What?”
“I’m not here for a tipple, sir, nor am I here for a dram.”
“What?”
The well-dressed, proper man sighed and shook his head a little. Good help was so hard to find, especially in the backwoods of nowhere. He looked back at the barkeep and gave him as warm a smile as he could muster for one so far below his station. “I’m not here to drink. I’m here to discuss business.” He paused. “With your bosses.”
“The manager, you mean? He ain’t here till tonight. He’s got the evening shift.”
“No, no, I believe I spoke inaccurately. I’m not here for the manager of this–” he hesitated, looking around the room in disgust as he spoke, “–fine establishment. I’m here to speak to the managers of the so-called Skull and Bones Motorcycle Club.”
The barkeep looked at him, blinking so that his eyes fluttered like the wings of a moth or butterfly in distress.
“May I speak to them?” the well-dressed man asked, giving a tight smile that he wore like it was the most unfamiliar thing in his closet. People in this part of the country seemed to enjoy a smile every now and then from their counterparts in society. So unlike New York, or in the East. There, he could be as uncomfortably unfamiliar with people as he was in his own country of birth.
“Yeah,” the barkeep replied, setting the towel he’d been using to polish the counter aside, “lemme check, okay?” The man trundled out from behind the counter, huffing and puffing, and headed to a door that clearly led into the rear of the establishment.
The suited and well-appointed man looked around the dive as he waited, ran the tip of his finger over the filthy counter, and held it up for inspection. He made. It didn’t pass muster. No sir. In his day, such poor work would have deserved at least a dressing down by the supervisor on staff. In fact, if it had been during his prep school days, a switch would have been taken to his backside. No questions asked, protests only noted. And the noted protests would only serve to increase the number and severity of the quick switch strikes you would receive on your backside.
The world had changed since the 1920s, though.
That was, of course, not to say that the man had. No, he hadn’t aged a day since his thirtieth birthday, when he was initiated into the upper echelons of the organization.
The barkeep came bustling out, giving a low whistle. “Hey! Spike said he’ll see you, but it better be worth his time.”
“Excellent,” the gentleman said as he methodically walked to the rear entrance, briefcase swinging in his hand.
The room was small with a table set roughly in the center. Both walls adjacent to the door were tightly packed with cardboard packages of beer and liquor, stacked high to nearly the ceiling. As the man in the suit stepped inside, four sets of eyes, each set embedded in the heavy features of men of rough repute, turned to him. All were clearly shocked to see a well-heeled man of the gentleman’s caliber step through the doors, almost so shocked that they seemed to have never seen a man of such character before.
“Who the fuck are you?” slurred one of them, a larger thug with a perfectly shaved head and what looked to be a freshly tattooed Jolly Roger on the right side of his neck. “You selling Bibles or some shit?”
The man in the suit smiled for the first time, and it was like death grinning out from beneath his hood.
The bikers shifted uncomfortably under his sweeping gaze as he looked over them, clearly unsettled by the stranger’s countenance. Somehow a smile of that peculiar tone, they knew, did not belong anywhere on the visage of a man who looked to have no more than three decades on this earth.
“No, no, gentleman. I am your salvation.”
“So…you are selling Bibles?”
The stranger threw his head back and laughed. Though they were clearly dim, they were still good for a laugh every now and then. Just like a dog chasing its own tail, a cat missing its mark on an arching jump, or dead baby jokes. The last one always got him to grin.
“Oh, you do slay me, sir. Am I assuming correctly that you are the one and only Spike? The leader of this little band of merry men?”
The bald-headed man, Spike, looked back and forth between his comrades, eyebrows raised. “Dude, man, I don’t understand half of what you’re fucking saying.”
Ignoring the lack of an invitation, the man in the suit went around the table and pulled out one of the empty chairs at the table. As he went to take his seat, he laid his briefcase onto the table in front of him. After settling in, he ran a hand with manicured nails over the ebony leather top of his case.
“Ah, fuck,” mumbled one of the other men, “he is selling fucking Bibles. Goddammit.”
“No, no,” he said, grinning that hideous grin of his again. “I’m not here selling Bibles. I, my dear Bonesmen, am here regarding a group for which you and I have mutual animosity.”
“And what group might that be?” Spike asked. “The Hell’s Angels or some shit? Cause we’re cool with them now. Feud’s over.”
“No, no,” the stranger said as held up a single finger, waggling it back and forth. “Frost Security. The wolves of Enchanted Rock. Bane of your existence, and the most feared creatures in all of western Colorado.”
So quickly did the blood drain from Spike’s face that he seemed to magically transmogrify a freshly minted corpse right before their eyes.
“The wolves?” muttered one of the men, one which the stranger’s intelligence network informed him went by the name Tiny. How droll.
“Yes, Tiny,” he said with a nod. “The wolves. About one year ago, plus or minus several weeks, some of the members of a local Bonesmen chapter formed what can be colloquially referred to as a posse, in order to find and rough up one Richard Murdoch, an employee of Frost Security. Correct me if my facts are inaccurate, dear Spike, but this posse rode out in several vehicles to a cabin nearby. There, they fell prey to an ambush, did they not? A ring of fur and fangs and claws encircled them, and several great, foul beasts fell upon their number from the surrounding bushes and trees.” The stranger glanced at Spike.
The democratically elected leader of the Skull and Bones Motorcycle Club nodded, despite the fact that his normal complexion had not returned. “That’s right,” he croaked. “Every word.”
“What the hell is this shit?” Tiny asked. “Spike? What the fuck’s going on?”
“Let’s hear the man out,” Spike replied, his voice almost rusty and depleted-sounding, like it hadn’t been used in ages.
“Yes,” the stranger agreed, smiling that curious grin of his that somehow made him look only more unsettling, “give me my moment in the spotlight, if you will. If, by the terminus of this conversation you are not suitably intrigued and desire to throw your hat into the ring on the winning side, I assure you I will leave with no fuss or muss.”
“Huh?” inquired one of the Bonesmen.
Spike shook his head and waved his hand. “We don’t like what he’s selling, we ain’t gotta buy.”
“Oh.”
“Now, gentlemen, I represent a certain organization which seeks to remain nameless and anonymous. We have several companies, fronts you might say, that we operate throughout the continental United States. I’d go into their various names and dispositions, but I do not seek to bore you. Typically, we do not call upon outside organizations for our missions or needs, as we are quite capable of handling the breadth of our traditional operational scope. But, as you have likely discerned, Spike, the wolves of Enchanted Rock do not fit any sense of the word ‘traditional.’”
“No, they sure don’t.” He leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the table. “That why you’re coming round here, then? You need muscle?”
“In a sense,” the stranger replied as he simultaneously flicked both catches, which resided on each side of the briefcase’s lid. “But also, in another sense, I offer you a chance at revenge for your fallen brethren.”
Spike snuffled his nose, filled his mouth with phlegm, and spat upon the floor. “Revenge, huh? You mean like kill ‘em? I fought them wolves, and they didn’t go down easy—or at all, if you wanna know the truth. I shot one with right in the haunch with a shotgun, and it just shrugged it off like I was throwing paper wads at it.”
“Oh yes, my organization is quite aware of this small setback when it comes to hunting these devilish fiends. And that is why I come bringing you the key to laying these beasts to rest.”
“And what that might be?” Spike inquired as he eased back into his chair, both heavily muscled and tattooed arms crossed over his chest. “Got yourself a magic bullet or some shit? Armor piercing, Teflon coated?”
“Not quite that. Something a bit more antiquated, but equally as effective, I assure you, when dealing with these wargs of Satan. Silver.”
A perplexed look passed over Spike’s face, and he shook his head a little. “Silver bullets?”
“Yes, Spike,” the stranger said as he opened the lid of the briefcase before rotating it ninety degrees on the table top so that it faced the chapter president of the Skull and Bones, “silver bullets.”
“Jesus,” Spike mumbled as his eyes rapaciously took in the veritable king’s bounty of silver ammunition, all arranged neatly by caliber. “You ain’t fucking kidding.”
Then, seemingly wary, Spike shifted his look to the stranger, for if the biker king had learned anything in all his years while clamoring to the top of this refuse pile he called a criminal organization, he had learned this: nothing came without a price tag. Even vengeance.
“What the fuck do you want for this shit?” he asked, his eyes narrowed. “Must be thousands of bucks worth of silver in here. And I know you ain’t giving it away for nothing.”
“Think of this an investment on our part. We give you the bullets, and you give us two things in return.”
He scratched his jaw, a frown creasing the sides of his thin lips and the harsh lines of his face. “Depends on what you’re asking for.”
“Item one,” the stranger said. “You do not strike at Frost Security until a date of our choosing.”
Spike narrowed his eyes further, waiting for him to finish.
“And two,” he said with a razor sharp grin, “I want the bodies.”