Chapter Four
Ozzy
It’s five hundred miles from Stony Shores to Missoula. It’s almost the same distance as riding from Auckland down to Wellington — almost the whole of the North Island of New Zealand — taking the scenic route east along the shores of the volcanic Lake Taupo and through the old Art Deco town of Napier.
It’s a pretty ride, except for the stretch that passes through Palmerston North. Nothing much happens in that town. The only good thing about Palmerston North is the National Rugby Museum.
We cut through the snow-capped mountains where the air smells like pine trees, so vivid the world takes on a tinge of green; we ride through the flat fields of Eastern Washington where all you can see are miles and miles of farmland cut apart by desert scrub, and the whole world seems to sway along with the stalks of wheat in the wind; we ride into the mountainous forests of Idaho and Western Montana where it feels like we’re stepping back in time to an era where people still take pride in their frontier roots.
We ride hard. Relentless. We stop four times for gas for a total of ten minutes. Preacher and I don’t eat, we don’t break to stretch our legs or check out the scenery. The two of us push our bikes until they’re screaming and steaming hot and the vibrations of the engine and the hum of the wheels on the road feel like a part of who I am.
I love it.
It’s simple, it’s just us and our machines, and it is sublime.
And with each passing mile, I’m more ready to get to my destination. I want this mission. I want to prove myself as the club’s enforcer. I want to prove myself to my brothers — to my family — that mean so much to me.
We get into Wye — a small town just outside Missoula — as the sun’s catching fire and about to sink below the horizon. Preacher points out a sign for a hotel called the Drift On Inn that looks like our kind of place: cheap, no questions, takes cash.
The guy working the front desk hardly bats an eye as the two of us step in to the front office, wearing our riding gear and looking roadworn to pieces.
“What do you need?” he says in a dead-even voice.
“We’d like a room for the night, mate.”
He looks at me, then looks at Preacher, then back to me. “One room, or two?”
“Just one. Thanks,” I say.
He looks over us again. Slow. Careful.
“You know, the Big Sky Pride festival is next month. Seems like you boys are a little early.”
“A festival? Sounds like a fun time,” I say, looking over at Preacher, who’s got a funny look on his face, but I don’t see what the problem is with getting a helpful tip from the guy working the desk — festivals are a good thing, in my book. “It’s good to take pride in yourself and who you are, you know?”
“It is. You want a twin bed room, or a double bed?”
“Twin,” Preacher says. He’s got a weird note in his voice, something I can’t quite place.
“Oh. Aren’t you two together?” the front desk guy says.
“We are,” I say, kind of confused by the front desk guy’s question, as Preacher and I obviously came in together and we obviously know each other. “It’s pretty clear, isn’t it?”
“No, we’re not together,” Preacher says.
“Yes we are, brother. We rode here together, we came in here together, and paying for two rooms is too expensive, so, obviously, we’re staying in one room together,” I say, trying not to sound frustrated, but Preacher is starting to make things unnecessarily complicated and weird.
“That’s not what he meant, brother,” he says.
“It was four words, mate: ‘aren’t you two together’. That’s pretty basic English and, even though we’re from different continents, I can understand what he’s saying.”
“You’re really not getting it, brother.”
I stop trying to argue with him and focus just on the front desk guy. “We’ll take whichever room has separate beds, since my friend here is being a bit weird about it. He’s usually not like this.”
“No worries. Everyone has their arguments sometimes,” he says.
I give over a handful of cash to the guy, enough to cover a few nights at least, and we collect our keys and head to our room.
Inside, it’s dingy to say the least. A layer of dust covers everything, the sheets look like they haven’t been changed since the hotel opened, and something shrieks and scurries away into a hole behind the dresser when we first turn on the lights. But, as bad as it is, I try and look on the bright side: it’s just more incentive for Preacher and I to finish the job quickly and get back to Stony Shores.
As much as I want the respect of my club, I want to get home. I want to finish that rugby game. I want to hear Maria’s voice. And I can’t do any of that here in Missoula.
“You ever done anything like this?” I say to Preacher as we carry in our saddlebags and dust off our beds.
“What? Stay in a hotel? Yeah, sure. Lots of times.”
I give him a look. “No, I mean get to this witness. Assassinate him. Take care of him before he talks. I reckon it’s got to be a bit tough, since they’ll probably have him with a police escort, at least.”
Preacher shakes his head. “More than that. With a guy like him, with the people he’s about to piss off, they’ll probably have him in protective custody. He’s in lockup somewhere, behind concrete walls and steel bars and lots of guards until they’ve at least got his written and recorded testimony. They’ll suspect someone is coming for him.”
I shake my head. “Bloody hell, this is not going to be easy.”
“No, brother, we may be here in this dump for a while.”
I dust off the bed, sending tiny mites scurrying, throw my bags on it, and rack my brains trying to think of a way to get to this guy.
“We’re going to have to come up with some real crafty, Jason Bourne-type plan to solve this one,” I say, flipping through the TV guide on the nightstand.
“Yeah, brother. Gunney wasn’t joking when he said this is your chance to step up.”
“This is both our chances, brother. We’re smart blokes — that’s why he sent us — we can figure this out.”
I get up from the bed and keep racking my brain while on the way to the bathroom. After a long ride, it’s time to get some real thinking in.
I flick on the lights, ready for even more disappointment and more things scurrying about, when I’m pleasantly surprised — the bathroom’s run down, but it’s not that bad.
I squint at the toilet. No, not bad at all.
“Hey, Preacher, maybe this place isn’t such a shithole,” I call out.
“Why do you say that? Does shithole have a different definition in New Zealand?”
“No, bro, shitholes suck there, too. That’s kind of the point of the word. But, you know those things they have in the toilets at flash places, like airports or nice restaurants, where they draw a bug inside the toilet for you to aim at? They have that here, too.”
“No way. Seriously?”
“Yeah. Come check it out. Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad.”
I move in closer for a look. Pull the lever on the toilet.
The drawing springs to life.
Moving on tiny, hairy legs, it scutters along the porcelain, up the bowl, and over the lid and into the bathtub, where it crawls down the drain. Hairy antenna wave angrily at me from beneath the drain cover.
“Yeah, nah, it’s just a roach.”
Preacher looks at me from the doorway, frowning. “This place is a total dump.”
“You want to move somewhere else?”
“No, we’ve got a reputation to live up to. How do you think Bear or Gunney would react if they found out we switched hotels because we couldn’t stand a little grime?”
“Bear would probably tell us a story about living in a dirty cave in Afghanistan and eating scorpions and mice because his rations ran out. Gunney… I don’t know. I don’t think he likes talking about deployment that much. He’d probably just hit one of us and swear a lot, and then do that thing like parents do, where he says he’s disappointed and makes you feel bad,” I say.
“Fuck, I hate that. So it’s decided: we’re staying.”
I nod. “So, let’s figure this out. How do you reckon we get to this David Ardoin?”
“Well, what would Bear or Gunney do in this situation?”
I concentrate. Try to put myself in the shoes of an elite soldier.
“Something military-like, and they’d probably look pretty cool doing it,” I pause a moment, thinking, trying to channel some of the more professional soldiers in our club — like Gunney, like Bear, like Jynx. The military isn’t part of who I am; while those guys were marching and going through boot camp, I was riding through the woods, back roads, and small towns of New Zealand. “We should do some recon. Find out everything we can about our target and who’s working for him.”
“Obviously. How do you think we should do that?”
I smile. I’ve got an idea. “Small town like this, everybody is going to know everybody else’s business. That’s just the way these places are. So we don’t need to get anyone important or anyone they’re going to miss to get the information we want. We start small. Follow me.”
* * * * *
Two hours later, we’re standing outside our target’s home — a little bungalow off a quiet, but kind of run-down residential street. All it took to get here was a search online to find the name of our target: Phil Perkins, low-level court clerk. A check in the phone book was all it took to find his address.
There’s a single light shining through the living room window and the flickering multi-colored glare of a TV. Every so often, a shadow gets up from it’s spot in a chair in front of the TV, heads to the kitchen, and comes back carrying a long-necked bottle.
“I feel kind of sorry for this guy,” I say. “His life looks sad enough as it is. Maybe we should find someone else.”
“He’s in our way, brother. Doesn’t matter that he’s chosen to live a pathetic life. Besides, this just might be the most exciting thing to have happened to him in years. Maybe he’ll be grateful,” Preacher says.
“Grateful?”
“He need some spice in his life. We can provide that. Think of it like we’re doing him a favor.”
“Well, when you put it that way, it almost sounds like we’re obligated to kidnap him. So, let’s give him a story to tell.”
I check my gun and push aside whatever minor regrets I have about spoiling this dude’s pathetic night. The sooner we break into his house, interrogate him, and get what we want, the sooner we can get out of here, the sooner I can talk to the woman that’s on my mind.
The road’s clear and it’s quiet — in this part of town, I doubt any neighbors would come knocking unless we really raised a ruckus — and it’s the perfect time to act.
We walk up to his front door. Guns ready, but held out of sight. And we knock.
A few seconds later a voice answers from behind the door.
“Who is it?”
Preacher and I share a look. “I’m Jack and this is Noel, we just moved in down the street,” he says. “We’re your new neighbors.”
I frown at Preacher. It’s surprising to hear my actual, real, name in a situation like this.
“And what do you want?” Phil says.
“We just wanted to say hello, mate,” I say.
“Hello. Now go. I’m busy,” comes the reply.
“That’s pretty rude, mate,” I say. “We walked all the way over here because we’re new to the neighborhood and we wanted to start this whole relationship off on a good foot, and you’re just going to keep the door shut in our faces?”
“Pretty much.”
“Come on, man, don’t be a dick,” Preacher says.
“Fuck off. I’m busy.”
“Busy? Seriously?” I say.
Preacher walks from the front door to the window looking into the living room. He presses his eyes up to the glass for a second, cupping his hands around his face to get a better look inside. A few seconds later, comes back.
“You’re watching ‘Wheel of Fortune’ and eating microwave meatloaf. Is that really what you call busy?” he says.
“What if it is? It’s my life,” Phil shoots back.
“That’s just pathetic. Those microwave dinners are hardly even food. Come on, open the door,” Preacher says.
“No. And they happen to taste pretty good. So, like I said before: fuck off,” Phil says.
I have to step in and keep things calm. The last thing we need is this Phil guy calling the cops on us for shit-talking him about his eating habits.
“Mate, did you know people in small towns are at a higher risk for suicide? If this is what passes for a busy night for you, maybe you should just invite us in for a beer. We’ll have a chat and you might even make some friends. You never know, it could save your life,” I say, trying my best to sound convincing and caring. Though, I do feel bad for the guy — taking everything into account, he doesn’t have a lot going for him.
“No. Why the fuck would I let two strangers — who happen to be dressed in leather and sound like they’re definitely not from around here — into my house this late at night?”
“Late at night? Mate, it’s barely past seven,” I say.
“I’m tired of this. We are not getting anywhere. Enough fucking around,” Preacher says, pulling out his gun. He gives me a quick nod. Time to get to work.
I kick the door. First kick, and it flies open, sending the Phil crashing into the wall. I’m on him in a tick, wrenching his hands behind his back and pressing him face-first into the linoleum floor.
He starts to scream — something about how he works for the courts and we shouldn’t hurt him — and the thought of even listening to him for another second seems tiring. I hit him. Hard. Hard enough his head bounces off the floor and he’s unconscious in a split second.
“Let’s get him back to the hotel. We can interrogate him there,” I say.
“Sounds good to me. This guy’s home just depresses me,” Preacher says, taking a quick look around.
I lift Phil up in a fireman’s carry. He’s light for a man who spends all day sitting on his ass, and I motion for Preacher to lead the way. Step one of our plan is under way.
* * * * *
A splash of cold water brings Phil back to consciousness. Sputtering and groaning, he blearily looks around the room. His pupils are glassy and dilated and there’s an angry red bump the size of a baseball forming on his forehead.
I might have hit him a bit too hard.
He glares at me like he wishes all sorts of evil things would happen to my mum.
So I hit him again.
His chair rocks backwards, and then forwards, and he grunts, shakes his head clear, and glares at me. “What was that for?”
“I don’t like the way you were looking at me,” I say.
“I don’t like the way you kidnapped me,” he says.
“So now we’re even.”
“Even? You guys started this.”
“Mate, it isn’t constructive to go about laying blame like that. Stop dwelling in the past and let’s focus on the present,” I say.
“Seriously,” Preacher says. “Let’s just keep this to business so we can wrap this up as quickly as possible.”
“I’m tied to a chair in the grimiest hotel room I’ve ever seen. This place looks like that one room from the first ‘Saw’ movie. And you expect me to cooperate?” Phil says.
“Grimy? That’s a bit rude,” Preacher says.
“Though true,” I say. “Look, mate, we don’t want to be in this room any longer than you do. So just tell us where the police are holding David Ardoin and tell us who his lawyers are and we’ll get this over with.”
“Get this over with? Are you going to kill me?” he says.
“It’d be a step up from your usual routine,” Preacher says. “I mean, seriously, your ‘busy night’ was wearing ratty sweatpants and watching ‘Wheel of Fortune’. You can’t really call that living.”
“Telling me that my life sucks and that I should be grateful to get murdered doesn’t do a damn thing to make me want to cooperate.”
“Look, life’s a ‘use it or lose it’ thing. You’re not using it, so, now you run the risk of losing it. Unless you cooperate,” Preacher says.
“Or, if you don’t feel like talking, we can just leave you alone in the bathroom. Maybe we’ll cover you with some syrup or some honey. There’s roaches in there as big as cats, and I’m sure they’d love to get to know you,” I say.
“So this is a ‘Saw’ thing,” Phil says.
“It is if you want it to be,” Preacher says.
Phil blinks. His resistance crumbles.
“Fine,” he says. “David Ardoin is kept in high security lockup at Montana State Prison. It’s 30-40 miles east of here, just off the highway on the way to Helena. They bring him in with an armed escort every time the US Attorney, Steve Green, wants to talk to him. Or when he’s supposed to meet with his lawyers.”
“What about his lawyers?” Preacher asks. “Who’re they?”
“He’s got two. Ryan Deering — a local guy — and some woman. She’s younger, and pretty, too. I don’t know her name. She just came by the courthouse today and all her paperwork hasn’t been filed. All I know is she’s from a big city firm somewhere and she’s staying at the Hilton.”
I nod, then head over to my bags and pull out a pair of socks. I wad them into a ball and shove them in our captive’s mouth. “Thanks, Phil.”
He screams, but the socks do a pretty good job at muffling the noise.
No one will bother us now. Now Preacher and I can get on to Phase Two of our plan.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Preacher says.
“That we leave this guy and go pay a visit to some pretty young woman in her hotel room and convince her to get us closer to her client?”
“Exactly.”
Phil gives another muted scream, but I hardly hear him — I’m already halfway out the door. Time to convince a fine piece of ass she picked up the wrong case.
This is going to be fun.