Arsen and Quinn were on the way home when the call came. When they reached his house, and he checked his voice mail, he found Phil had taken one of the Horsemen while he was on the way to the clubhouse. The man wasn’t in a talkative mood, and Phil wanted him to bring his “kit.”
“What kit?” she asked as the message ended.
He grinned. “A little something Doc Holiday put together for me.” She went slightly pale and he chuckled. “Nothing like that,” he grinned, knowing what she was thinking.
“Don’t go,” she said softly.
“I have to. I’m not going to ask the brothers to do something I’m not willing to do myself. Besides, I’m the one who has the kit and knows how to use it,” he said as he reached onto the top shelf of his closet and pulling down a small metal box with lock on it. He opened the gun case it so she could see the syringe and a small vial of drugs inside.
“What’s that?”
“Scopolamine and morphine. Most people know it as truth serum, but it doesn’t work it like it does in the movies. Done properly, it puts them into, what Doc calls, twilight sleep. It’s not that they can’t lie, or not speak, but because they’re out of it, they tend to say whatever pops into their head. It’s kind of like they are talking in their sleep.”
“And it won’t hurt them?”
“Do you care?”
“No, not really. It’s just the Blades are so…different…than the Riders. If Riders wanted to know something, they would beat the shit out of whoever until they talked.”
Arsen nodded. “Then they tell you whatever they think you want to hear. And if it’s a tough guy, it takes a long time to break him.” He snapped the lid closed on the box and relocked it. “This is better. Give him the shot, wait an hour or so, then ask your questions. Ask it four or five different ways to see if you get the same answers, and there you go. The best part is when you tell them what you’re doing, their own imagination does most of the work for you. They don’t feel bad about telling you what you want to know because, after all, they were drugged and didn’t have a choice,” he explained as he prepared to leave.
“Even though they could lie?”
“Yes. Or not speak at all. The drug doesn’t make them talk. It only makes them more willing to talk. Of course, I don’t tell them that. I feed them the same line from the movies and television shows, how they are going to tell me everything I want to know and they won’t be able to stop.”
“Have you done this before?”
“Once, on Zane, when Doc showed me how to do it. I found out he wanted to fuck Holly. He offered to trade Michelle for Holly for a night.”
“You asked him that?” she cried.
“No. He volunteered it,” he said, then grinned. “Doc and I had a good laugh because we knew he would never act on it. He doesn’t remember a thing and I never mentioned it to anyone. You’re now the third person to know, besides me and Doc, and I would appreciate it if you keep it to yourself.”
“And how does Doc know how to do this?”
Arsen shrugged. “He’s a doctor, and no, he didn’t work for the CIA or some shit.”
He had his gear packed and paused at the door to the garage. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t worry. I’ll be okay. There will be twenty of us, all of us watching each other’s backs.”
She bit her lip. “If I asked you to stay and make love to me, would you?”
He grinned. “I know what you’re trying to do. I have to do this. When I get back, I’ll make love to you for hours if that’s what you want, but business before pleasure.”
She fought to hold her tears. “Call me as soon as it’s over?”
His smile widened. “Are you worried about me?” he teased.
“It’s not funny!” she snapped. “You’re still my rock, okay? Sometimes, when the voices are whispering, knowing you’re there is the only thing that keeps me going. If something were to happen to you, especially with the Horsemen, I think I’d go crazy!”
He looked into her eyes then slowly kissed her. “I’ll call as soon as I start back to Tucson. I won’t answer my phone while I’m working on the guy, so if I don’t answer, don’t panic. I’m coming back right here as soon as I’m done. Don’t worry.”
She nodded, not trusting her voice. He kissed her again, then stepped out the door. She heard the car start, then the garage door rumbled down. It was the first time he’d been away from her since he picked her up on the side of the road, and she instantly felt his loss.
She wandered the house for a while, trying to keep the rising panic at bay, then fixed herself a quick dinner. She tried to watch television but finally gave up and threw herself on his bed, pulling the pillow in close so she could detect the lingering smell of his scent, and prayed he would come back and hold her.
***
Arsen called Phil as he motored north on I-10 and got their location. They had the guy stuffed in the back of the Blades’ van, the same one they used to deliver their orders to the UPS sorting facility for shipment.
It was close to six by the time Arsen met Phil, Zane, and Berk. He parked his car in a Home Depot, then stepped into the back of the van. “What can you tell me?”
“Not a fucking thing. He hasn’t said anything other than he was going to skull fuck us and we were dead. The same old shit they always say.”
Arsen sat down on the floor beside the man. “Let me tell you how this is going to work,” he said slowly pulling out the case, giving the man plenty of time to think. “I’m going to inject you with a truth serum and you’re going to answer all my questions. The only question is, am I going to fry your brain and leave you a drooling vegetable or not. That, my silent friend, is entirely up to you.”
“Fuck you!”
Arsen nodded. “I’m going to give you a moderate dose first. You talk, we’ll dump you out somewhere, and in a few hours, assuming someone doesn’t mug you, you’ll be fine. But if you fight the drug, then I’ll have to keep increasing the dosage. You will talk, I can guarantee that, but how much of your mind is left after you talk, that’s the tricky part.”
Arsen made a big production of opening the case and filling the syringe from the vial, holding the needle up to the light and thumping it dramatically. “Hold him,” he ordered.
The man was already bound to the tie-down rings in the floor of the van, but Phil and Berk jumped on him and held him still while Arsen injected the drug. He did it slowly, more slowly than required, to heighten the effect. He pulled the needle out of the man’s arm and carefully put it away.
“I’ll tell you nothing, you motherfucker!” the Horseman snarled, but his eyes were wide with fear.
“For now, you’re right. But in an hour, after the drug has had time to work, we’ll see.” Arsen smiled his most threatening smile.
They rode for forty-five minutes, their prisoner slowly slipping into a half-sleep, half awake, dream like state. “Hey, buddy!” Arsen said, nudging him with his foot as the four men sat in the floor.
“What?” the Horseman asked, his voice slow and thick, as if he was drunk or half asleep.
“What’s your name?”
“Phyllis. Randall Phyllis.”
Arsen grinned at his men. “Did you get beat up a lot in school, Randy?”
“Yeah. God I hate my name.”
“That so?” Arsen asked. “What do you want to be called?”
“What?”
“What do you want me to call you? Since I’m your friend, I want to know what you liked to be called.”
“You’re my friend? You gave me drugs!”
“It’s some good shit, isn’t it? I only give the good stuff to my friends.”
Randy smiled. “Thanks, man. It’s some good shit.”
“So, what do your friends call you?”
“Snakebite.”
Arsen rolled his eyes and grinned at Phil. “Okay, Snakebite. Roger wants me to go to the lab and check it out. He said to see you and you would take me there. Do you know where it is?”
“Yeah. Maryville. Why does he want you to look at it?”
“You’ve been having some quality problems, haven’t you?”
Snakebite nodded. “Yeah. Chimp, he’s a chump. He doesn’t know his ass.”
“Chimp? Is that the chemist?”
“Yeah. We call him chimp because he’s so hairy. His girlfriend is hot though. I’d fuck her. I’d slide my cock right between those big titties of hers and—”
“Where’s the lab, Snakebite?” Arsen asked, cutting him off before he had to listen to any more of that fantasy.
“I can show you.”
“Just tell me. I don’t think you’re in any shape to be riding, do you, pal?”
Snakebite smiled. “No. That’s some good shit you gave me.”
“The best,” Arsen agreed. “Just tell me the address and I’ll tell Roger you took me there, just like he said.”
Snakbite shook his head. “Don’t know the address. Know how to get there, though.”
“What can you remember?”
“Man, I don’t know! It was this guy’s house. He wanted to expand and agreed to work for us. He thought it was funny as shit we were copying those fucking Blades. He said the Hearts and Daggers was some quality shit. Best out there.”
“You can’t remember the address?”
“No. It’s somewhere off 83rd.”
Arsen snapped his fingers and pointed at Phil. “You can’t remember the street name?”
“No. It was Indian something.”
As Phil tapped on his phone, Arsen paused, trying to think out to proceed. “Was it the name of an tribe, like Apache or Cherokee, something like that?”
“No, nothing like that. If Roger wanted you to see the lab, why didn’t he tell you where it was?”
“He was on the phone and couldn’t remember the address. That’s why he wanted you to take me.”
“Oh. Roger is such a prick sometimes.”
Arsen grinned. “You got that right, brother.”
“Indianola?” Phil asked.
“Is the street name Indianola?” Arsen repeated.”
“Maybe. I can’t remember. I know it was Indian-something.”
“That has to be it,” Phil said.
“You don’t remember the house number? How do you find it?”
“It’s the white shithole on the left side. I bet this guy’s neighbor’s love him.”
“You said it was blue?”
“White! Jesus, why don’t you listen?”
“What’s on either side of it?”
“Man, I don’t know! There’s a yellow house across the street. The guy has a couch or something in the front yard.”
“Show Zane,” Arsen ordered, and Phil moved up to sit in the passenger seat.
“You’re doing good. We’re going to look now.”
“You have any more of this shit?”
Arsen grinned. “As much as you want.”
Snakebite grinned and nodded. “Awesome.”
***
Forty minutes later they rolled to a stop by a white shithole of a house with yellow house on the other side of the street with a couch sitting in the carport. Arsen slid the door open. “That the Chrome Horseman club house?”
“No. That’s outside of town.”
“This is the place you said.”
“No. This is where we make our molly. You think we would have such a shithole for a clubhouse?”
Arsen slapped Snakebite on the shoulder. “That’s right. You told me.”
“Jesus. You never listen.”
“I know. Sorry about that.” He looked to Zane and Phil. “Where’s his bike?”
“We left it in a park near where we bagged him,” Phil said.
“Let’s go back there and drop him off. He’ll be coming out of it in an hour or so.”
“We’re just going to let him go?” Berk asked.
“Yeah. He won’t remember any of this, so why not?”
“Because we’ll have to deal with him later?” Berk’s tone make it sound like a question, but it clearly wasn’t.
“And where do you suggest we dump his dead body? Are you sure you didn’t leave prints or nobody saw you grab him? If he turns up dead, a whole lot of shit is going to start going down. We let him go…” he shrugged. “He’s just one more stoned out junky. The horsemen will get theirs after we’ve had time to plan.”
Berk nodded. Arsen’s arguments made sense, but it galled him to let this asshole just walk away. “Maybe someone will roll him.”
Arsen grinned. “I think we should put his wallet out where someone can easily find his ID, to help him get home. What do you think?”
Berk smiled, feeling a little better. “I like that idea. After all, we want him to get home safe.”