CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
I eyed the forest surrounding the biker clubhouse. I’d been jogging daily since buying sweats, but I’d skipped this morning, which made sitting here even worse. Maybe if I just went for a walk and stayed away from the clubhouse . . .
Yeah. I’d probably step into a bear trap. Gabriel would be pissed if I bled out in his car.
I’d just flipped open my notebook when I heard the rumble of motorcycles. Three were coming up the road. One was that kind with the front wheel that sticks out. Yes, I know nothing about motorcycles. Never met a biker, either. I just hoped Gabriel’s window tint was dark enough to hide my gaping.
One wore a full helmet. The second had none. The third wore a small black one without a visor. I’m sure that has a name, too.
The guy with the small helmet looked like a construction worker. Big and burly, but clean shaven with short brown hair. He was dressed in a leather jacket, jeans, and work boots. The helmetless guy riding the bike with the extended front wheel was more what I expected, with shit-kicker boots, a chain looping from his pants, a long graying beard, and a ponytail hanging over the Satan’s Saints patch on his jacket.
I cracked down my window as they parked in the row of bikes.
“No, I’m serious,” the bearded one said. “Gabe’s got a girl in the car.”
“Don’t call him Gabe,” said the guy in the full helmet, his voice muffled. “You know he hates it, which means it’s disrespectful.”
“Yeah? Well, so is bringing his bitch to the clubhouse.”
A sigh. “Gabriel wouldn’t do that.”
“So who’s the blonde in his car?”
Heavy footfalls came closer. A shadow crossed the passenger’s window. The guy with the beard peered in.
“Yeah, it’s a girl.” He shaded his eyes and squinted at me. “Gotta admit, guy has taste. Hot cars. Hot pussy.”
“Jesus,” muttered the guy who’d defended Gabriel. He had his helmet off, but I couldn’t see him behind the others.
When he reached to tug the bearded biker back from the window, I powered it all the way down. Seemed rude not to.
As I did, I got a look at him and . . .
If the guy with the beard and stringy ponytail matched my vision of a biker, this one matched Hollywood’s. He couldn’t be much older than me. Hazel eyes. Tousled blond hair curling over his collar. A few days of stubble on a chin that I was sure had a cleft when he shaved.
His boots were low-profile Docs, and his leather jacket only had the gang patch on one sleeve. He wore snug, faded jeans and a white T-shirt under his jacket. A blond Marlon Brando, without the broody angst. I’m not normally given to drooling over hot guys—Oh, hell, who am I kidding?
“I’m a client of Gabriel’s,” I said. “He had to stop by on business and he was stuck with me.”
“Holy shit,” the bearded biker said, staring at me. “Holy fucking shit!”
The young biker shot him a glare.
Bearded guy waved at me. “Didn’t you see the article? The photos? That’s Gabe’s new client. Todd and Pam Larsen’s kid.”
He shot me a big smile, but the older one who hadn’t spoken eyed me and eased back before stopping himself.
The bearded biker said. “It’s an honor to meet you, Miss Larsen.”
“Which isn’t the name she uses, I’m sure.” The young guy extended a hand to me. “Rick.”
“Ricky,” the bearded biker said, reaching up to ruffle Rick’s hair. “Everyone calls him Ricky.”
Ricky rolled his eyes.
“Olivia,” I said, shaking his hand. “Don’t worry. I’ve been ordered to stay in the car.”
“What?” the bearded biker said. “We aren’t good enough for Gabe’s old lady? Son of a bitch.”
The other older guy grumbled something under his breath. Even Ricky’s lips compressed in a tight line.
“I’m not Gabriel’s girlfriend,” I said quickly. “I’m his client. That’s one ethical line he wouldn’t cross. It doesn’t pay well enough.”
A whoop of laughter from the bearded biker. “Got a point there.”
“He told me to stay out because I’m only a client. He said it would be disrespectful if he brought me in.”
Ricky nodded. “But if I say it’s cool, it’s cool. Come on.”
I got out and let him lead me down the lane. Ahead was what looked like a cottage, complete with a front porch and chairs. It sprawled off to the rear, making it larger than it appeared from this angle.
“I’ll warn you, it might be a disappointment,” Ricky said, waving at the clubhouse.
“I’ll survive. So, what kind of bike do you ride?” I asked, as if I could tell a Honda from a Harley.
He answered. I didn’t quite catch it, maybe because I was focused on that clubhouse door, waiting for Gabriel to barrel out and give me shit.
“You ride?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Never been on one.”
“I could fix that.” Ricky grinned, as if he was offering to corrupt me in more ways than one.
Whoa. Cute biker was flirting. I guess the “biker” part of that description should have thrown up a big stop sign, but I’d just come out of a relationship with a guy who considered double-parking a walk on the wild side. I was in the mood for a change.
So I flirted back. Nothing overt, but by the time we finished the short walk to the door, the two older men had fallen back behind us, as if giving him space.
Ricky opened the door. Inside it looked like a retreat for business execs who want to get away from the city and pretend they’re just regular guys. The walls were wood, as was the floor. There was a stag head on one wall . . . wearing a White Sox cap.
The long bar was rustic but spotless, bottles stacked behind, a few on the top shelf that definitely were top shelf, at least a hundred a bottle.
Half of the living space was sofas and comfortable chairs, old and worn, but hardly Goodwill material. The big flat-screen TVs and sound system were the sort I’d see in CEOs’ theater rooms.
Tables took up the other half of the room. At one, four guys played poker. At others, guys typed away at laptops, gazes glued to the screen, so intently you’d think they were checking the stock market. Maybe they were.
“Disappointed?” Ricky asked.
“I was hoping for more bullet holes.” I pointed at a stag head. “And maybe a rival club member on the wall instead.”
“Oh, I think we’ve had a few hanging from that guy’s antlers. But we had to cut them down and let them go.”
“Pity.”
He grinned. “I thought so.”
I pretended to give the room another once-over but concentrated on the occupants this time. The mix was about twenty-sixty-twenty. Twenty percent looked like the old, bearded biker. They were the ones lounging on the sofas and chairs. Sixty percent were more like the one who could pass for a construction worker—mostly clean cut and clean shaven, but burly enough that you knew he didn’t sit behind a desk all day. The others, like Ricky, could have pulled off the suit-and-tie look, even if they probably never would outside a courtroom.
There were women, too. They were a little more what I expected. Tight jeans. Tank tops without bras. Evening makeup at noon. Jersey hair. The general vibe varied from “wouldn’t look out of place on a corner of 47th” to “could work at a really nice strip club.”
The men noticed me, but not in the way I might expect from a roomful of men. Just curiosity, with the occasional nod or smile before turning back to whatever they’d been doing. The women didn’t nod and definitely did not smile. I felt like a new lioness walking into a pride, as the others discreetly sharpened their claws. One of the youngest—a blonde at the “really nice strip club” end of the spectrum—even got to her feet, before an older woman tugged her down. As the blonde sat, her gaze went to Ricky, but he wasn’t paying attention.
“We’ll wait for Gabriel here,” he said, pulling out a bar stool for me. “What’ll you have?”
“Beer.”
He leaned over the bar and plucked a can from a bucket of ice. “Bud okay?”
“Sure.”
To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I drank beer, and I’ve probably never had one that didn’t come from a microbrewery. But when flirting with a biker, it didn’t seem helpful to admit that.
“I’m sure your situation isn’t a topic you like discussing with strangers,” Ricky said. “But I just want to say that you were smart to go with Gabriel. I’m guessing he’s getting you some money, as he should. You got shafted. Gabriel will fix it.”
“He’s actually handling other things for me.”
Ricky looked surprised.
“Having money is nice,” I said. “Having money is not everything.”
He leaned over and mock-whispered, “Don’t say that too loudly in here.”
I smiled and shook my head. “I did say having it is nice. It’s just better if you feel you’ve earned it.”
He watched me for a second, then nodded. “Agreed.” He took a long drink from his beer.
“Who’s your friend, Ricky?”
It was the blonde who’d stood earlier. Up close, I could see past the makeup and realized she was younger than I thought. Maybe twenty. Maybe not even that.
“A client of Gabriel’s,” Ricky said.
“Gabriel’s old lady? You let her in here?”
Ricky’s gaze cooled. “I said client. One, do you think I’d be having a beer with Gabriel’s girl? Two, I can let the pope in here if I want, Lily.”
The bearded biker from earlier looked up from the couch where he’d planted himself. “If you read the papers, Lily-girl, you’d know who she is and you’d keep your mouth shut.”
“All right,” Ricky said. “That’s enough—”
“Shit,” one of the men with a laptop said. “She’s the Larsen girl. Gabriel repped her mom, didn’t he?”
“Larsen?” someone piped in. “You mean the serial killers?”
Lily stared at me like I’d crawled out of the toilet. “Your parents are those freaks?”
Ricky’s look made her inch back. “Meribeth? Come get your daughter.”
The older woman had been standing since Lily approached us. Now she hurried over and grasped the girl’s arm. “I’m sorry, Ricky. She had a couple before she got here.”
“Yeah? Well, considering she’s eighteen and it’s barely noon, I’d say you have a problem there.”
The woman scuttled off with her daughter.
Ricky raised his voice a notch. “For anyone who didn’t catch that, this is Olivia. She’s Gabriel’s client, and I invited her in.”
He didn’t say, “Does anyone have a problem with that?” His tone didn’t even imply it. But there was steel in his gaze. Murmurs passed through the room, welcomes for me, and assurances to Ricky that everyone was cool with it. A room full of bikers—most of them older and bigger than Ricky—but when he talked, they listened. Interesting.
Ricky turned back to me, his expression as guileless and friendly as if we hadn’t been interrupted. Before he could say a word, though, we were interrupted by a near-growl from the other direction.
“Olivia . . .”
I glanced over to see Gabriel bearing down, an older blond man beside him, a door closing behind them. The other man was about fifty, clean cut, and dressed in jeans and a golf shirt. From the size of his arms, though, I suspected if he ever swung a club, there was someone on the receiving end.
Gabriel was trying very hard not to scowl.
“Told you I wasn’t supposed to get out of the car,” I whispered to Ricky.
Ricky stepped forward. “Hey, Gabriel. I found Olivia in your Jag. Black car. Sunny day. Didn’t seem healthy. I invited her inside. Insisted on it actually.”
“Thank you,” Gabriel said to Ricky, in a tone that didn’t sound terribly grateful. “I believe it’s time for us to be going.”
“She just got her beer. You want one while you wait?”
Gabriel looked at him. Ricky met his gaze, his expression open, pleasant even, but that steel crept back into his eyes.
Gabriel shot up his sleeve and checked his watch. “Quickly, Olivia.”
The older guy in the golf shirt smiled. He murmured something to Gabriel, then gestured at one of the bikers, and the guy nearly fell out of his chair scrambling to come over. Golf shirt was the boss then.
I looked from the boss to Ricky. Noted the blond hair. The similar facial structure, a little softer in the older man.
Biker gang boss. Biker gang boss’s son. Okay, that explained things.
Ricky suggested we all move into the back room, which we did, to the disappointment of those who’d decided they were suddenly very thirsty and should hang out closer to the bar.
Gabriel introduced me to the guy in the golf shirt—Don Gallagher—and it took only a few minutes of conversation to confirm that I’d been right about his position and his relationship to Ricky. Gallagher and his son were surprisingly good at making small talk. Maybe I shouldn’t say that’s surprising. I guess part of me still lives in Kenilworth and always will.
A guy who runs a biker gang is like a Mafia kingpin. He’s a businessman. Which doesn’t mean he’s really a decent, misunderstood guy, only that he’s risen high enough that he can have others play thug for him. As for Ricky, his dad proudly told me he was working on an MBA at the University of Chicago. Part-time, Ricky said, because he had responsibilities with the family business.
“We should go,” Gabriel said, after Don told his son what Gabriel wanted—someone to persuade Gray’s girlfriend to speak to us. “We have that interview.”
“Right.” I took one last gulp of beer. “We’re ready for that, then?”
He nodded. “Don has agreed to provide us with one of his men, who will speak to Mr. Gray’s girlfriend before we do.”
“I’ll handle it,” Ricky said.
“There’s no need—” Gabriel began.
“I’ve got errands to run in town, and I can probably persuade her better than any of these guys.”
Gabriel didn’t like it, but when Don agreed, there was little he could do. He gave Ricky the address and said we’d follow.