Breaker
“Aimee Palakiko…” I whisper to myself as I watch Biggs hover over the girl with the knife in his hands. I’ve watched him do this a thousand times before. I wasn’t about to see anything different now. Still, her name was stuck to my lips. “Aimee Palakiko?”
“What the fuck are you muttering over there, Breaker?” Biggs looks at me as if I’ve lost my damn mind. Maybe I have. My business isn’t about saving anyone’s life here. But that girl in her innocent little jean skirt and her perky little tits looks more significant than the usual character sitting in that metal folding chair.
And then, like lightning, it dawns on me.
I stand up and charge over towards them, both staring at me with piercing eyes. I kneel before the girl, gazing directly into her eyes. “You said you robbed Vice. How the fuck did you pull that off, lady?”
Biggs’ squinty eyes peer down at me before releasing the blade against her throat.
She coughs, a strange impulse you get when you think you’re about to be slit from ear to ear, and sits up a little straighter. She purses her ruby red lips together before smirking. “I don’t give away my secrets.” She pauses, her arms struggling to shrug while being bound. “I know how to get what I want. I am very good at what I do.”
Thinking back to the first time I heard her name, it was when Crazy Ezra was talking about this lady who was daring to approach men at the hotels outside Cheyenne and Fort Collins.
“Word is that you seduce rich men at bars. You play the whore and take their money before they even get their pants down. You’re out of there so fast that no one can catch you.”
“Then you have heard of me,” Aimee replies. “It’s good to know that word gets around. Though I guess I’d rather be anonymous with my line of work.”
“Who the fuck cares?” Biggs cuts in. He was always a lug of a guy who couldn’t see past the words on the page. He leans back on the table, the knife still wrapped in his fingers. In addition to being nutty, he’s not known for his patience.
“I think we should care, boss.” I stand up and join Biggs at his place. It’s a maneuver I’ve used with him ever since I joined the Gravediggers. It’s a sign of respect to join a man at his place. So I stand beside him as I offer up a solution that could benefit the club. “We both know that this chick is hot. She’d score a good price if we pimped her. Tan, good rack, lean legs—she’d be our top moneymaker. We talked about getting more into the business if we stayed in town or moved closer to Denver.”
“You don’t think that would actually work, do you? You boys can’t be that stupid.” Aimee leans her head over to look at us. Her long, brown hair floats down the back of the metal chair where dried blood has stained the rust.
“Shut the fuck up, girl.” Biggs reaches over and smacks the back of the chair with the boot, so she flies forward. The chair falls to the ground with a loud metallic crash.
She rolls her face to the side in defiance, staring us down with those steely green orbs of hers.
“She wouldn’t be good for shit in bed. It’ll take the whole club to break her in.”
“We could do that,” I say as I try to hide my annoyance. “But then again, she might be of better use to us. At the last meeting, we were talking about the NARCO division being on our back and our police contacts falling through. If that’s true, the Feds will be on us any day now, and we’ll be on the move. We’re going to need money for that—more than just the pawnshop deal netted us in petty cash.”
“So, what are you suggesting, Breaker? How the fuck is this bitch supposed to help us?”
“We let her do her thing. We put her to work doing jobs with the other clubs in town. We know that the Firestorm Riders and the Eastside Boys are doing hits on businesses this week, and we’ve got Intel on a few others—when and where they do their deposit drops. We send her out and make her earn her keep.”
Aimee suddenly laughs as she shifts around on the floor, clearly uncomfortable. “You think I’m going to go to work for you? You gotta be kidding me! I’m an independent contractor here. You can’t buy me.”
I squat down beside her, my face only inches from hers. “You’ll work for us because it’s the only thing keeping you from being put out on the streets with our brand on your backside or that knife dug straight through that skinny little neck of yours. Do I make myself clear?”
While she digs daggers into my chest with her eyes, I spin the chair back upright so that she faces Biggs and myself.
“And what if she fucks up? She’ll get us in trouble with another club, and we’re not ready to deal with an ambush. There’s a reason why we’re not settled in. And how do we know she isn’t already working for Vice or Diego or any of those other suckers looking to move in on us? This could all be part of the plan—send a leggy chick with a death wish to get caught so she can bring back info on us.”
Biggs’ has a point. While he may not be great at the big picture stuff, he knows his risk management. He always seemed to be one step ahead of the impending doom, always alert for signs of someone watching or following us, and always ready to make a move when we needed to get on the road. It wasn’t the best way to run a solid, established club. But for nomads like the Gravediggers, it kept us alive against all the odds.
“If she fucks up,” I say, my back turned to the girl, “then she dies. We don’t go in and save her. She’s just a casualty, and we go about our plans like usual. If anyone asks, we can be honest and say she tried to pull the same shit with us and she managed to escape. Done.”
“Fine. But if she’s a spy, you’re going to be damn well responsible for it, Breaker.”
“What the hell does that mean? I wasn’t the one that let her stiff me out of a diamond necklace. She’s not my responsibility. I don’t babysit.”
“Good!” Aimee chimes in with that smug little voice of hers. “We’re in agreement. I don’t need one either because I’m not working for you.”
I turn back towards her and roar with frustration, “You will fucking do what the hell we tell you to do! Do you understand me?”
Biggs is back on his feet as well, the knife out and ready. She slithers back into her chair, her head bowed again.
Biggs spins, holding that knife up to me now. “This is your idea, Breaker, and you’re going to be the one that watches her and makes sure she doesn’t pull any stupid shit.” I don’t have time to protest before he adds, “You’re off enforcer duty. Henry can pick that up for you. Starting tomorrow, you and this chick are making some money for the club.”
I don’t even bother to argue again. Biggs’ words are the law around here, and I’m not in a good enough standing as it is to play the fool. The only reason why I’ve got the enforcer title is because the man I was an apprentice to ended up in the hospital with a broken neck after a skid on a patch of black ice. I wouldn’t have gotten promoted with my loose lips and tendency to not always follow the rules.
And for his part, Biggs doesn’t repeat it either. He snaps his fingers and his guy, Louie, who has been a ghost up against the back wall until this point, opens the door for him as he strides out.
Just like that, and I’m left with my ward in an icy silence that’s almost as horrible as her dead stare.
“Can you at least untie me?” Aimee moves her leg slightly so that it kicks up against the tied rope.
I groan before slinking down in front of her. Neither fast nor slow, I untie the binds while willing myself not to say anything about the old, pink scars around her knees and thighs or the green bruises dotting her arms. They disappear out of my sight as she shakes her muscles out.
“If I’m supposed to stay here,” she says, “can you at least get me a blanket and some supplies?”
“I’m not your slave,” I bark. “You can live without a blanket and a toothbrush for the night.”
“So I’m supposed to just sit in here until tomorrow when you force me out on the streets to rob one of your rivals? How the hell is that meant to work?”
“It’s going to work because if it doesn’t, you’re going to kill us both. So I suggest you turn off the damn lights and go to bed.”
“On the floor? Here? I don’t even get a real room?”
She continues to protest as I walk off, turning off the light switch for her. The door shuts behind me, and I use the long chain I’ve used in the past to keep men in and out to lock her in. As I walk away, I hear her fists banging up against the glass windows as she screams.
“Hey! Breaker! You can’t fucking leave me here! BREAKER!”
***
Aimee’s in the same spot when I go to get her the next morning. Her face is plastered up against the windows, looking out at anyone that walks on by. When she spots me, she completely transforms. It’s almost sinister how her face twists from hopeless to determined.
Right then and there, I somehow know that this isn’t going to be the easy workday I have in mind.
I give her a few minutes to freshen up with the borrowed outfit and supplies kit I made Monica put together last night after we finished our meeting. She and the rest of the girls we claim weren’t exactly thrilled to be playing mother hen for some unknown chick, but they managed to come up with what she should need to get her through a day or two with us. I figure it’s enough before Briggs either cuts her loose, or I get instructions to drop her.
“Who is the mark?” Aimee asks as she chomps down on the browning banana and lukewarm oatmeal.
Biggs and I had spent a good portion of last night discussing this. I had wanted her to go after someone easy. There were a few new clubs trying to get in the Denver scene that would have been easy pickings for her, but Biggs wanted to test her skills out for good.
“What’s there to lose?” he’d said as he chugged down another beer. “The bitch gets caught, and she learns her lesson for good.”
Aimee’s about as thrilled as I am with his final decision on who she’ll target when I break the news to her.
“Vice? The Devil’s Fighters?” she cries out loud. “I’ve done him already, and each time was planned out meticulously. I can’t just go in and hit the club blind. It’s suicide. I won’t do it.”
“You have to do it. I’ll have to kill you if you don’t.” I place a notebook before her, opening a page of handwritten notes some of my boys have made over the last few months we’ve been in town.
“Look. This is everything we’ve got on the Devil’s Fighters,” I say, pointing to the underlined print. “Right now, we know they do a pass off every four days, by the William Tell Bank and Loan, to a man named Jacob Anderson. He’s a patsy—takes a chunk of whatever he deposits for them. Most days, they don’t even monitor Anderson. They just leave him with the cash. He shouldn’t be that hard to get to.”
Aimee puts down her spoon and leans back in the leather office chair, rocking herself back and forth. A line above her eyes furrows as she uses a pen to trace over the notes she’s reading.
After a minute, she gives in. “Fine. Let’s go. This says they do the drop at 10:30, and it’s already 10:15.”
She grabs the thin leather jacket the girls have loaned to her and stands by the door, waiting for me to follow. For someone so reluctant moments ago, her calm demeanor is almost unnerving. I try not to let it rattle me as I escort her down to the basement parking garage, past the rows of bikes, and to one of our unmarked vans.
We drive in silence. There isn’t much to say other than the basics. I tell her the spot I’ll be parking—close enough to track her, but far enough to not be noticeable, and I hand her the burner phone with only my number programmed in just in case she needs to get a hold of me. She stuffs the phone inside the pocket of the oversized jacket and stares ahead.
We spot Jacob Anderson almost instantly. The description the boys gave was spot on—white male, dark glasses, dressed in a blue or black suit with a gray tie. He looks like the type that would always be at the bank.
Aimee has me pull over in the ATM lane of the bank’s drive-thru so she can sneak out without being suspicious. I pretend to fumble with my credit cards before driving off with fake frustration.
I nab a spot behind the bushes, out of line from the bank’s cameras. From here, I watch as she sits down on a bus bench and opens up the discards of a newspaper someone had left behind. She lifts up her skirt a little and adjusts her top. She even tousles her hair with the palm of her hand, giving her that island princess look that must win her over with dumbass guys who can’t see past tits and ass.
On the dot, a pair of motorcyclists wearing Devil’s patches drive up towards the bank’s parking lot. The men circle a few times before pulling into an empty spot next to Anderson.
Aimee doesn’t bother looking behind her at the action. She is calm as can be as she carries on reading. The motorcyclists’ drive off minutes later having been so quick at the pass-off that I barely register it’s been done.
When I turn back to Aimee, she’s gone, completely disappeared. I panic as I turn the van back on and dial up the burner number. But then she reappears, right around the corner of the bank. Almost naturally, she slams her body into his so that she falls backward, stumbling onto the ground. I watch as he moves the small package of money to his back pocket as he offers her his other hand. She rises to her feet only to fall on him again, and she laughs with a full, open mouth and her head back.
Aimee’s hand rests on his arm, reassuring him that she’s all right. The gentle massage works like a charm. While she’s soothing him, stroking his ego, he doesn’t even notice her hand wrapped around the backside of him, grabbing the yellow package of money. She makes an excuse, pointing towards the incoming bus before darting away with the club’s cash in hand.
I dial her phone as she hops on the bus and it speeds off in the other direction, but there’s no reply. I try again as I start the van up, hoping to catch her at the next bus stop. Still, no answer. She doesn’t get off at the next stop or the one after that. I pull in front of the bus with enough time to board. As the driver screams at me to pay, I run through the length of the bus, calling her name. But every seat is empty.
My pulse quickens as I realize what’s happened. Aimee hasn’t just conned the Devil’s club worker—she’s managed to pull one over on me as well.