Benz

I said my piece at Church.

“You think that’s not the end of it?” Bear asked from the head of the table.

“I think it’s the beginning of it.”

Most of the club was there for Church. Church was an important part of The Dark Saint’s Code. We met at least once a week. The Prez, Bear, he ran the meeting. If he wasn’t available E.Z., the Veep did the honors.

Meeting, planning, and executing were how we got shit done.

If you had a beef, you brought it up here.

Bear was a good Prez; he was the only Prez I really ever knew. He was getting older, farther away from what it was like on the streets of Port Az. The Club were his eyes and ears out there, and we let him know what we saw.

Bear had the big picture. He knew where the MC was going. He knew how to get us there. But Kade, Zig, Axle, Chase, and the rest of us, we were there.

We were all seeing some of the same shit.

Something was happening in Port Az that we weren’t in control of and Bear didn’t like losing control. None of us did.

“Do you think they’re trying to move in with the harder stuff?” Bear asked me.

“That’s what I think. We all know there’s a market for it. If those two, Skillex and Taro, were Hawks, which is possible, that’s one thing. If they’re from some other club, we got double the problems.”

The drug trade in Port Az was under our control.

And we kept it soft. On purpose. You could make a lot of money on pot and we did. Sure, sometimes potheads turned into junkies, but not here. Not in Port Az. It was too hard to get heroin here, thanks to us. And that was making us attractive to both to newcomers who wanted to live here and to heroin dealers who saw a market.

But the minute it got worse, the minute heroin was easy to get, shit was going to get ugly. Our end of a lot of bargains was making sure that didn’t happen.

“What do you want us to do, Bear?” Kade asked.

“Keep your eyes out. We may have to lay a little trap, if what Benz is saying plays out.”

“I sure as shit hope not,” Axle said, but I knew he was seeing what I was seeing. More than the occasional junkie was showing up on the fringes of Port Az.

If they were here, it was for a reason.

“Let’s figure out who’s making the run to Austin.” Bear moved on to the next bit of club business.

Business was good for The Dark Saints just like The Dark Saints were good for Port Az. The Dock’s were too vanilla for my tastes, but it was booming thanks to us and the CRIME FAMILY. A fair amount of new shipping was coming through the port.

After Church, my brothers and I knew what our jobs were. Keep watching.

I had to be damn sure if we needed to set a trap for The Hawks. We could be headed to a war and that wasn’t good for anyone’s business.

If there was heroin in Port Az, we needed to know how it was getting in.

After Church, I checked in at Woody’s Lounge.

If you were on a downward spiral in Port Az, likely you hit there a rung or two before the bottom.

Woodrow was happy to have The Saints drink in his place. And he was good for information. He was at his usual place behind the bar. He set me up with a shot, but I waived it off.

“You seeing anything you don’t like?” I asked him.

“Just you, Benz.”

“Funny. You know what I mean.”

“I do. You’ll be the first to know.”

“Good.” I turned and left him to his work and looked across the street to the library.

I hadn’t seen the pretty little librarian since nearly running her over at Woody’s Lounge the other day.

I glanced at the library, and there she was, coming out the front door loaded down with boxes or some shit. Sometimes it was better to be lucky than smart and right now I was feeling very fucking lucky.

I watched for a beat. She was in a dress again. Shit, she was beautiful. And innocent-looking. That was what struck me.

She was working to navigate the steps of the library, in her pretty dress and high heels. The steps were winning. I watched as one of the boxes she was carrying went flying, and she went next.

I hustled across the street. She thought I was a gentleman. Maybe I’d let her think that just a little while longer.

“Well, if it isn’t the librarian.” I put out a hand and she looked up at me. Her eyes were so goddamn beautiful I tried not to stare. Her dress was also making it easy to see the swell of her breasts at the top. Every protective instinct I had fired up when I looked at her.

Other things fired up too. I hadn’t been interested in a woman like this, ever.

Jenny took my hand.

“You must think I’m the clumsiest person on Earth.”

“You aren’t?”

“I guess I am.” She looked around at the mess her spill had caused. “Great,” she said and started to try to gather the papers and get them back into the banker’s box.

“What the hell is all this?” I picked up a few pieces of paper and handed them to her.

“My work. I’m trying to make sense of the mess of the records up there for Port Az. I thought I could take some work home with me, but ugh.”

“You work a lot?”

“I’ve only got a few weeks here for this assignment so yes, I do.”

I helped her collect all her shit. Once it looked like we had got everything put back together, she tried to pick up her box again and struggled. I grabbed it easily and she looked relieved.

“Here, I got it. Where to?” I asked her.

“My car, around here in the lot.” She started walking and I admired the rear view. Her ass was perfect in that dress.

“So, you’ve been here in Port Az, what? A week? And you’ve spent the entire time in the library up there?”

“I have, yes. I did. Except the time I got tea from Woodrow. When I ordered, he acted like I was speaking another language. Oh, here’s my car.” It was an ancient powder blue Volkswagen Bug.

“This is smaller than my bike.”

“Yeah, I know. Librarians don’t make big money though, so. Yeah, my old Bug it is.”

She opened the door and I put her box of papers in the back seat.

“I think it’s time you saw more of Port Az than the library, Jen.”

“Really? How?”

“The back of my bike is a good place to start.” I wanted her in a lot more places than the back of my bike. The universe had dropped this creature in my path twice now. I was not about to argue with that.

“I thought you said I shouldn’t be hanging out in this part of town?”

“I’m not going to show you this part of town.”

She smiled at me and I swear it was like she’d blown in my ear or something. It had a physical effect on me.

A librarian. I was hot as shit for a librarian. This was new. I waited as she considered the wisdom of getting on the back of my bike.

“Can I trust you?” She was right to ask.

“Not at all.”