12
I decided that from then on I’d be keeping a closer eye on Jimmy. Unfortunately, for me, Teddy and Wilson had patched Jimmy into the club while I had been enjoying my weekend with Madi. I found it out the hard way when I went to have a talk with them on Monday morning.
“The fuck have you been?” Wilson snapped when I came into sit in front of the desk.
“Wednesday fucked me up, I was down and out for a few days,” it wasn’t a lie.
“Down and out with that girl?” Teddy asked, because damn him he saw straight through me.
I shrugged, no point and hiding it. “Yea. You going to rail me for it?”
Wilson snorted and shook his head. Teddy, on the other hand, gave me a nod like he knew that shit I’d been through for the last few years.
“Did you want something?” Teddy asked curiously.
“What’re your thoughts on us doing side jobs?”
“Side jobs?” Wilson asked with a raised eyebrow. “Boy, don’t you start being stupid on me. You know what you’re talking about when you say side job?”
All these people were implying that I was stupid, I grimaced at him and tried to keep it from getting me. I scratched my jaw as I eyed the other man.
“I have my ideas. Though side jobs for me are working on bikes and getting paid under the table. Side jobs for you guys are a little more illegal than tax evasion. But, what I’m asking is, do you monitor the side jobs that we do?”
Teddy’s eyes narrowed, and I wasn’t sure if he caught my meaning or not.
“I don’t keep tabs on what you do. Do I need to? Everyone we patch in is vetted to some degree and given six months to see if they’re a fit and can be trusted. We do things that aren’t legal on a lot of levels. If we had the cops coming in here with the cooking Cindy does and the papers we keep, it wouldn’t be hard to tell what we do. Everyone here would do some kind of jail time.”
He didn’t get my meaning, I rubbed the back of my neck, and I found that I was second guessing myself. Had this gotten too dangerous?
“You’re only dealing in pot, though, right?”
These were good people, I knew they were. They wouldn’t deal real poison to people, would they?
“Quit beating around the bush, Sid,” Teddy said with a growl. “You got some accusations to make?”
He didn’t look happy with me, and I didn’t feel like an ass for asking, but there was a growing sense of dread in my gut. I thought Teddy was a good man, I thought Wilson was, too. When they told me that they were getting pot from the closest legal state and trafficking it over to those that used it for medicine and couldn’t afford to move, I thought them heroes on some level. But, Jimmy didn’t really strike me as a hero; just a dumb kid.
I swallowed as I looked at him and I tried to decide if I wanted to call him on the suspicion I had on Jimmy. But, now with the doubt in my gut, I didn’t know if I could stomach looking at Teddy with the knowledge that he dealt in harder substances.
“Is it serious shit, man? I gotta know,” I looked to Wilson. “You guys kept me in the dark to protect me. But if it’s serious shit, the shit that kills people, I can’t be apart of that. And I don’t mean just to protect my paycheck.”
I still had morals, they had been protected by this man, and now they were threatening my view of him.
“We don’t,” Wilson started, and I looked at him. “We don’t do anything that will cause any of the people we deal with harm. You know what Cindy is cooking, you’re in the kitchen up her ass as much as the rest of us are. Why are you asking questions?” He didn’t look offended like Teddy did, his expression was closed but curious.
I knocked on his desk, hopefully for luck. “I think Jimmy’s dealing in harder stuff, he called it a side job. He’s given me four hundred for working on a friend’s bike. You and I both know that’s overpaying me.”
“Then why take the money?” Teddy asked; he was being hostile. He didn’t appreciate my line of questions. Teddy was a bear of a man, he was also grossly over protective. “Kid was working with you for six damn months. He was by your side helping you out every time you needed him. This is the respect you show him for all that help? You flake out on him when he gets patched, and now you accuse him of dealing dirty?”
“I took the money because I’m not a dumbass,” I snapped at him. “But dealing out an extra four hundred bucks like it’s nothing is suspicious, Ted. And I’m sorry I flaked, I don’t have a good excuse for that.” Though, I would call Madi a good excuse. They probably wouldn’t agree with me. “I’m trying to protect my interests in the club just as much as I’m trying to protect myself.”
“If you want to protect your interests,” Ted said as he stood, his fists clenched up at his sides. “Then stay out of it. If you don’t know anything and you’re questioned by a cop, then you can’t be implicated in anything we do. Keep your fucking ignorance,” with that he stalked out of the office.
It left me alone with Wilson, and I tried not to let Teddy’s temperament get to me. I prided myself on being a mellow, easy going guy considering all the shit I’d been through serving and then my discharge. It was hard to not let the distrust of a guy I called friend get to me. Wilson didn’t let me stew in it.
“What have you got besides the money he gave you?” he questioned.
“He gave me the money to work on his friend’s bike, a piece of shit he said he found in a rotted out shed. The guy stuck around while I did the work,” I explained meeting his steely gaze. At least he was hearing me out. “Guy offered me a deal on Percocets when he noticed me having problems getting around. You know what Percocets are?”
“Oxycodone,” he nodded. “I know what that is, I’ve taken them in my day. You think Jimmy is dealing in harder stuff with his friend?”
I looked down, studying the letters etched into my fingers. ‘Don’t give’ was inked into the upper part of my fingers. It got questioned sometimes, but I took it as meaning ‘don’t give up’ or ‘don’t give in.’ Now I looked at them, and I wasn’t sure which I wanted it to mean.
“Yea,” I looked back up at Wilson.
“You make accusations like that, you’ll need to have something to back it up; besides just your word.” He shifted in his seat and folded his tattooed arms over his chest. “Tillman vouched for the guy, he watched him work alongside you and bust ass doing grunt work that all the newbies do. Except for you. We gave you a lot of special treatment because of your situation,” he spoke seriously, like I was paying them a terrible insult by being suspicious.
“I’m not fucking special snowflake. I didn’t ask for special treatment,” I snapped, glaring at him now. “I’ve busted my ass just as much as Jimmy has. I’ve treated every bike you’ve put in front of me like it was better than my own Goddamn bike. I fucking helped with the plumbing when the bathrooms were backing up, and I cleaned out the shit. Tell me that I haven’t earned my patch, Wilson.” I felt the heat of my anger burning up my neck, “Tell me that I’ve wasted the last four years of my life, motherfucker.”
He raised his hands as if to ward me off, though he still looked the picture of calm. Like my words hadn’t affected him in the least.
“Not at all what I said,” he said plainly. “What I’m saying is you see what the kid does around here, and that’s all. When we do runs, things you aren’t involved in, we see how the kid is. If you’re going to accuse him of doing something that’ll give us a bad name, I want you to supply me with something I can work with besides your word and your gut.” He must’ve sensed that I was about to argue, that the fire of my anger still simmered at the surface. “I trust you, I know that you wouldn’t come to me if you didn’t think something was up. But for me to do anything about it, I would need something more than your word.”
I stood, still angry, but I nodded. “I’ll let it go then,” I growled as I started to the door, I had to get out of here.
“Don’t,” he stopped me. “Don’t let it go. Be vigilant. Keep your eyes and ears open. When you can give me something to back up your word, you come back to me with it. Don’t mind Tillman. Let him be sore,” I looked back at him. ”But if your gut is telling you something is up, you follow your gut.”
That was something, he was telling me he trusted me in a roundabout way. I guess that was something for my bruised ego.