ABBIE
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Mahoney said as he stepped into the room.
I gave him a half smile. “No you're not. It's all part of the dog and pony show.”
Mark Mahoney was a cop I knew well. I'd known him for years and we'd never liked each other very much. The man had a perpetual hard on for me and my boys. It seemed like something close to his life's mission to take us all down. He hated us. Despised us. And I honestly didn't know why. For the most part, we kept our noses clean. Yeah, we were loud. Yeah, we were rowdy. And yeah, once in a while, we got into a bar fight. But we never did anything that justified his level of animosity toward us.
We sat in silence, staring at each other for a long moment. He flipped open a file and started leafing through the pages, pointedly ignoring me.
“Fine, I'll bite. What do you want, Mahoney?” I asked.
He looked up at me. “That was quite a show you put on for Sanderson out there,” he said. “You really know how to get under people's skin.”
I shrugged. “We all have our talents,” I replied. “So what am I doing here?”
“I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Yeah? About what?”
“About last night.”
“What about it? You guys got called out for a simple noise complaint. We left – as requested.”
Mahoney finally looked up from the file he was studying. “See, I'm of the opinion that something else was going on there.”
I smiled at him. “Yeah? And what makes you think that?”
“Gut feeling, mostly,” he said.
“Yeah, well, gut feelings can be wrong sometimes.”
He nodded. “Sometimes. But it's not often I see two rival biker gangs get together to enjoy one another's company and cut loose a bit. The idea that you and the Incas were hanging out together just having a party – it just doesn't quite sit right with me.”
I shrugged. “Maybe we're trying to broaden our horizons. Make new friends.”
Mahoney gave me a small chuckle. “Yeah, maybe. But I'm more inclined to think that there was some sort of deal going down. And that nice, sweet, pretty girl happened to walk in on it by mistake. Wrong place, wrong time.”
I actually felt bad for the girl. She hadn't been in the wrong to come down and yell at us, and she didn't deserve to be unwittingly used as a mule in a drug deal either. If she'd been searched and caught, that could have gone really badly for her. But, at the time, I had no other option. If I'd been caught with the drugs in hand, I was going down. All of us were. And would I have stood up and claimed responsibility if she had been? I honestly didn't know. I had a really strong self-preservation streak and as terrible as it is to admit, I didn't know that I would have stepped up if she'd been in trouble.
But it was a moot point anyway. I knew Abbie wasn't going to get searched, and she didn't. She was safe. Sweet, innocent looking little white girls typically didn't get rousted by the cops. Besides, the cops had no reason to suspect her involvement in the first place. With my boys and the Mexicans all there, she stuck out like a sore thumb and had a story to back up what was going on. I knew they'd let her go, which is why I used her. The cops probably thought they were protecting her from us by sending her on her way as quickly as they could. Maybe they were right.
It didn't mean I felt good about doing what I did and putting her in the middle of our shit, though. I typically didn't do that – involve innocent people. Especially women. I preferred to handle my shit on my own. But desperate times called for desperate measures and all that shit people said to justify their behavior.
Mahoney looked at me as if he were trying to read my mind. I simply looked at him and gave him my best blank stare.
“She came down to tell us to quiet down,” I said. “If she walked into some sort of alleged deal, don't you think she would have said something?”
“Not if she didn't realize what was going on,” he said. “It's been my experience that girls like her aren't exactly all that street smart. She might not recognize some shady drug or gun deal going down until it was too late.”
“That's so condescending and dismissive,” I said and smirked. “You don't know what her life experience has been like. You don't know what she's lived through.”
“True,” he said. “But I do know how to read data. And I do know that over the last few years, crime in this city has been going through the roof. Why do you think that is?”
“You cops aren't doing your jobs very well?” I said. “Sanderson out there seems more interested in eating jelly donuts than catching criminals. You saw that smear of powdered sugar on his uniform, didn't you? Fat bastard couldn't chase down a one legged man if he needed to.”
Mahoney smiled and I thought he stifled a laugh, but then his expression grew serious again. With the spike in crime throughout the city, I figured that tensions were going to be high and the cops were going to be on edge. I really couldn't blame them for taking their sweet ass time checking me out and trying to rattle me. My record was clean as a whistle, though. Much to their chagrin. Though, that didn't mean I never broke the law – it just meant that never got caught is all.
“The armed robbery on Rosewood street, you know nothing 'bout that?” Mahoney asked me, changing his tack and staring at me over his glasses.
He was trying to give me the tough guy act, trying to intimidate me – and you'd think by now, he'd know that bullshit didn't work on me. I knew a tough guy when I saw one. And little old Mark Mahoney wasn't a tough guy. Oh sure, maybe among the cops he was. Maybe he could beat his cop buddies when they sparred in the ring. But that was nothin'. Compared to me and my boys, he was little more than a stick that we could break in half with barely any effort at all. Still, I had to admire his attitude, had to respect the balls on the man.
“Not a thing,” I said, shrugging. “Like I've told you a million times before, my guys don't hurt people. We don't do shit like that. That ain't what we're about.”
It was the truth, too. Aside from dealing drugs, we didn't do anything that would cause physical harm to anybody else. Except when we had to act in self-defense. That wasn't our gig. I'd beat the shit out of any of my guys who even thought about hurting an innocent person just to steal their jewelry or a car stereo. They knew it and nobody ever tested me. They knew they'd lose. We made business deals. That's how we sustained and enriched ourselves. We didn't go in for the petty street crime bullshit.
Mahoney sighed, rubbing his temples. “I'd like to believe that, King. I really would. But you know as well as I do that since these motorcycle clubs started showing up here – including yours – our peaceful little Oregon town has gone to hell.”
“Sorry to hear that, Mahoney,” I said. “But that's got nothing to do with us.”
“See, but it does,” he said. “You and your boys are part of the problem here.”
“How are we part of the problem when we're not the ones running around beating on people?”
“How do I know you're not?”
“Because I gave you my word,” I said flatly.
Mahoney laughed and ran a hand through his hair. “You know, the victim of that armed robbery is in pretty bad shape. He's in a coma after being getting his head bashed in with a baseball bat. His neighbors heard motorcycles outside the house but were too terrified to step outside themselves. The bikes pulled away before the cops arrived. That's all we know.”
“Like I said,” I replied, “it sucks and I feel for the guy and his family. But that shit ain't got anything to do with me and my boys.”
Mahoney looked at my patch. He didn't say anything, but his train of thinking was clear. Yeah, the club had something of a reputation. Back in the day, the Cossacks used to be a violent, ass-kicking club. They used to steal and beat people. But when I took over, that all changed. That wasn't what I was about and I sure as shit wasn't going to let my club be about that. But the club's checkered history was being held against us. People didn't forget – or forgive – very easily.
“You sure about that, King?” Mahoney asked.
I gave him a rueful laugh and shook my head. “Not sure if you noticed or not, but the Cossacks aren't the only club in town, Mahoney,” I said. “We don't want to cause your town any trouble. That's not our thing.”
“Then why are you here?”
“The views? The crisp, ocean air?” I said, with a shrug. “Listen, we like to ride. And we like the views out here. I grew up in a town not too far from here. I'm not as much of an outsider as you seem to think I am. A lot of my guys are from around here, too, for that matter. Like I said, we don't want no trouble and we go out of our way to stay out of it. We just want to do our thing and ride our bikes in peace.”
“Uh huh,” Mahoney said, shaking his head. “It's interesting, though.”
“What's that?”
Mahony shrugged. “Just how crime has steadily gone up as more of you guys show up around here.”
“Like I said, I can't speak for the other clubs, but most of the Cossacks are from around here. We never arrived; we've always been here. So any uptick in crime can probably be laid at the feet of those other clubs. You know, the ones who actually did just start showing up.”
“And what about the Incas? And the Devil Dogs, huh? And the others who just started showing up around here? What do you know about them?”
“Nothin',” I said. “They're not Cossacks. And it's not like we get together for ice cream socials, Mahoney. I can't speak for them, nor do I know anything about them. Their business is their business. I can only speak for the Black Cossacks and, contrary to what you obviously think, we're not bad guys.”
Mahoney scoffed and gave me a look that said he obviously didn’tbelieve me. In his book, wearing a leather jacket and riding a bike made you a criminal. Couldn't really say I blamed him, I suppose. While we had always been here, lived around this place, we hadn't been as prevalent until the other clubs started to arrive. And then, we only made our presence really known to protect what was ours.
In my view, and how I'd tried to steer the club, it all came down to protecting our territory while also learning to work with them. Some – like the Incas – were way more dangerous than we were. Some of those guys were stone cold killers. I didn't particularly like dealing with them, but sometimes I had to. It was a necessary evil to run our own business.
The Incas, though – they weren't just into simple little things like drug runs and taking side jobs running security like we were. They were out for trouble. They reveled in it. They sought it out. Killing was prestigious among them. They even had patches for milestone kills. I dealt with them as little as I could
“I really want to believe you, King,” Mahoney said, closing the file he had on me. “You seem like a decent guy underneath all of that biker bullshit.”
I don't know that I'd call myself a good guy, but I took it at face value – though I was surprised by his show of respect. As begrudgingly as he may have given it. Still, I was surprised – and almost shocked – by the fact that it seemed genuine and sincere.
“Thanks,” I said. “You too, buddy.”
That last bit was meant to be sarcastic, but Mahoney apparently took it at face value, too. He nodded and gave me a small smile. I just shook my head. I'd never called anybody “buddy” in a real and serious conversation. But he didn't know that.
“So basically, you don't know anything about the Incas? Or the Devil Dogs?” Mahoney asked. “Nothing useful you can tell me?”
I shook my head. “I really don't.”
“Would you tell me if you did? Or would that violate some bullshit biker code of yours?”
“My code applies to my club only,” I replied. “Those other guys in the other clubs can all go fuck themselves.”
“And your story is that nothing was going on the other night? That your guys and the Incas were just there for a friendly little get together?”
“It's not a story,” I said. “It's the truth.”
Mahoney closed the folder in front of him. I could see on his face that he didn't believe me. He knew there was more to the story, but he had no way of compelling me to give it to him. Still, I'd played my part. I'd tap danced and had played the good citizen.
“You're free to go, then, I guess,” Mahoney said. “But can I ask you a favor?”
“What's that?” I asked as I stood up from the table.
Hard won experience had taught me to never agree to do somebody a favor until you knew exactly what was being asked of you. And that went double, if not triple, when it was a cop doing the asking.
“If you hear of anything about the robbery or any other crimes going down, give me a call? You can remain anonymous, but someone needs to be looking out for the people of this town. It's not right that they're caught in the crossfire of all this bullshit. And if you're really from around here and love this place, you know you need to do the right thing.”
Cracking my knuckles, I mulled over how to respond to such a request. I couldn't do it. Not if I wanted to remain alive. I couldn't turn folks in, even if I knew who was running around out there doing the bad things that were going on. I tried to keep my nose out of that shit for a reason. The less I knew, the more likely it wasn't going to be able to come back and bite me in the ass later.
Developing that strong sense of self-preservation I had taught me a lot of things. Like, if I did happen to hear of something, I tried to forget it as quickly as possible. Or pretend I'd never heard it in the first place. Not because I condoned it, but that was the rule for doing what I did. One day I'd be out of this gig, on to something else. But for now, I had to live by the rules or die.
On the other side of that ledger, though, Mahoney was right. Innocent people were getting caught up in some serious bullshit. And some of them were getting hurt. I knew for a fact that it wasn't my guys running around beating people with baseball bats. But I had a feeling it was the Incas. That sort of over the top violence seemed like them. Knowing there were people out there who were getting caught up and hurt – some even killed – because of a lifestyle they never signed up for weighed on me. I knew it wasn't right. But if I wanted to save my own ass and live the life I wanted, it was best to go full ostrich and bury my head in the sand.
In order to get the deal done so I could walk away from this life, and away from this town, I had to get out of this shitty little room and get to work.
“I'll do what I can, Mahoney,” I said, not meeting his gaze. “I'll do what I can.”