CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Monday morning at sunrise, Stick Vanko pulled up to the front of the clubhouse and parked his old truck.
None of the Flyers had ridden into Spokane on their bikes, and they'd parked on different streets, so as not to have any cops or just locals wondering why there were suddenly a bunch of rigs parked at a derelict warehouse.
He'd driven the '78 Chevy he kept for hauling rocks, bricks and other shit a homeowner in the country occasionally wanted to move. Tonight, he hadn't hauled a thing except himself to the meet, or away again.
Faro, or what was left of him, had been rolled in a plastic drop-cloth and laid in the back of Snake's van under a pallet of Darlene's candles and shit. The cloying scent of fruit and flowers was still in Stick's nostrils.
Better that than the stench of death. Shot simultaneously by Stick and Cooler, the would-be pimp had gone down with bullets in his forehead, chest and gut.
There was also a cement block and a length of plastic cable in the back of the van. In a couple of hours, give or take, Faro would be sinking to the deepest part of Coeur d'Alene Lake.
He'd have plenty of company down in the lake bottom, an idea Stick found darkly humorous. The wanna-be pimp could swap stories with the other lowlifes who had tried to take out Flyers.
'Hey,' one of the other psychos tethered to cement blocks might call. 'Here comes company. What're you down for, man?'
'Oh,' Faro would reply. 'I tried to pimp out one of the Flyers' women, kill one of the brothers, and cut in on their trade. How 'bout you?'
'Who, me? I tried to cut and rape Vanko's old lady, and steal his kids as a bargaining chip.'
'Yeah, as for me,' another would say, 'I murdered my own brother, and stole a cool million from the Flyers, then terrorized an innocent woman.'
Quite a convo, they'd have... if the dead could talk.
But in truth, none of them would ever talk or do anything else, again. Not much left of them once the lake trout and other scavengers got through with them.
Stick swung out of the truck and walked into the clubhouse. Pete and Bouncer were slouched at one of the tables, a bottle of whiskey between them. Pete looked haunted, and Stick stopped to clasp his younger brother's shoulder. "Bratishka, how is T-Bear?"
"He's good, or so Knife says." Pete shuddered, and shook his head. "Man, I never wanna see that much blood at one time, ever again."
Bouncer nodded. "It was bad. But Knife says it coulda been a lot worse. Faro shot him with a little ankle-piece. 22 caliber round. Went through the muscle, petered out and stopped under the skin in T's back."
"Thank God for that," Stick said. The pimp could've been packing a bigger pistol loaded with cop-killers, rounds that exploded inside the body, and wrought deadly havoc on internal organs, bone and muscle. In which case, they'd be planning a wake for their brother. "I'll look in on him."
"Yeah, Sara's in with Manda," Pete said, and yawned.
Stick scowled. "Why? What's wrong with her now?"
Pete gave him a strange look. "Seems T's girl has more to her than any of us suspected. When she tried to shove T-Bear outta the way? Faro's bullet hit her first, then hit T. She likely saved his life."
"Nichega sebe," Stick muttered. "I didn't see that one coming."
Pete snorted. "Da, neither did T-Bear. Guess she likes him better than she thought."
Stick barked out a laugh. "I guess so."
He knew better than most that sometimes it took nearly losing someone to realize how much they meant. Only after Sara had nearly been raped and murdered while saving his sons had Stick admitted he wanted her at his side for good. His woman might look like a society queen, but she was tough when it counted, and true to the bone. She also got him hard faster than any other woman he'd ever known—and he'd known a lot. Then she followed through in a way that satisfied both of them.
His phone buzzed, and he palmed it, and listened. "Da. Spasibo."
"Good," he said with satisfaction as he shoved his phone back into his pocket, "Our two surviving friends are on their way to Seattle, courtesy of a long-haul freight truck. The driver will no doubt be shocked as hell to discover, tomorrow at the docks, that he has passengers among his pallets of fertilizer."
Bouncer guffawed. "Those two ass-wipes are in for a long, cold night. And a smelly one—that shit stinks."
"No worse than they do," Pete said. "They think they're tough, but by the time the rough side of Seattle is through with them? Not so much. Good work, brat."
He passed a shot of whiskey to Stick, who took it with a nod, and tossed it down.
"Just sorry I had to miss the party," Bouncer said, looking disgruntled.
"More important that you were here," Stick told him. "If our op had gone wrong..." he shrugged. The club would still have one officer on deck. Stick really should have stayed here too, but sometimes a man wanted in on the fun.
He just hoped Sara didn't hear anytime soon that he also could've been shot tonight. He'd thought he could talk Manda's ex down, but honestly, if Rocker hadn't tackled the kid, he might've shot Stick. Not to say the shot would've hit him, with Garner's hands shaking so badly.
But you never knew.