There was no way we were here for a nice afternoon. Whores only toured bedrooms. It would be a waste to take us anywhere else when you already knew you were going to get what you wanted out of us.
So why were we here then? Wreck was a criminal. His MC just took down Salamander’s growing operation. Was there someone here that he needed to talk to or something he needed to pick up or drop off? Who could he know way out here?
I reached for my notepad to start asking Wreck questions but he stayed my hand and cocked his head to follow him inside. Confused, but incredibly curious I didn’t protest. One thing I’ve learned in the past few years was that asking questions was dangerous. It was always best to go with whatever was happening and try to adjust along the way.
That was how I stayed alive as long as I did.
I was skeptical when Wreck bought two tickets for us to actually head inside and cautiously I followed closely behind him. It was definitely some kind of zoo, but something was off about it. Immediately my brain switched gears, and I started wondering what he was up to. Was Wreck planning on robbing the place? If so, why keep me in the dark about it, especially if he expected me to help in some way? What was my role in his plans? Then it hit me…
Did he bring me here just to take a fall? Was he planning on pinning whatever he was going to do on me?
“Jesus, lighten up. You’re going to scare the birds.” Wreck looked back at me with his hands in his pockets.
Scare the birds?
That’s when I started actually looking around. This wasn’t a museum. Or rather it was a museum, but only for birds! The lobby was initially set up as a brightly colored museum with several nooks and interactive displays for kids to explore. The walls were practically plastered with birds of all kinds in various phases of flight.
I’d stopped in my tracks and gaped in awe at my surroundings. The pictures were breathtaking and there were so many species I’d never seen or even heard of before.
“If you think that’s impressive…” Wreck held out his hand and with wide, stunned eyes I took it.
I turned my attention to him, studying his face for signs of an ulterior motive as we walked up a long sloped inclining hallway. I couldn’t find anything except the smug satisfaction of getting something over on me. I was still in disbelief. I mean, this couldn’t possibly be happening.
Not to me.
I pushed down the distant squeaks of hope deep down in my soul. Nothing brings a person quite as low as dashed hopes.
My resolve crumbled when Wreck opened the hallway doors and I stepped out into the Tropical Birds exhibit. I gasped and stood motionless paralyzed by the lush beauty of the room, the smells, the noises, the sounds and, of course, the fluttering and playful birds themselves. The room was a massive tree-laden greenhouse and the main wooden walkway was suspended at least ten feet off the ground. The path branched off into several winding paths some brought you to the treetops, the others to the ground. There was also a massive multi-tiered waterfall that sprayed crisp water into the clean air. The sweet smell of mango trees intermingled with earthy scents of cacao and coffee trees. Birds of all colors and shapes darted, meandered and walked around. It was beautiful to behold.
With one finger Wreck closed my gaping mouth. I startled at that, not realizing how distracted this had all made me. My face flushed with red embarrassment and despite that I couldn’t contain a smile. This was truly amazing. I desperately wanted to say something to him, but when I pulled out my pad and paper the words didn’t flow. A regular thank you seemed horribly lacking but I wrote anyways.
He glanced at the paper then looked back at me for a long moment. What did he see when he looked at me?
“Go explore,” he said, leaning on a railing.
“Abandoning me already?” I wrote, but immediately regretted it. Humor never came across well on the written page. A tiny note pad was incredibly limiting when I wanted to express myself. It was so very frustrating.
“I’ll come find you,” he replied. His tone, while not threatening, had a sense of inevitability to it. The sun set, the moon rose and Wreck would come find me. It was a strange pleasant feeling.
I looked forward to when he did.
Not knowing how long this dream was going to last I made the most of my time there. I giggled like a little girl when the cockatoos ran by my legs. I was captivated by the parrots, pheasants, thrushes and so, so many others. It wasn’t just birds either! Two-toed sloths hung from branches and frogs and fish played in the waterfall.
I thought about trying to sketch one of the birds, but my pad was too small and the pen I had was too thick and inarticulate. Instead I sat on the edge of the pond with my fingers in the water and closed my eyes. I just wanted to listen and fill my mind with the songs of the jungle. Even with my eyes closed the world seemed so bright in this one perfect moment. I desperately wanted to capture this experience and replay it in my heart whenever I needed it.
Something large cast a shadow over me and when I finally opened my eyes I saw Wreck. He held a paper bag from the gift shop in one hand and a chilled coffee in a glass bottle in the other.
“They gave me a bunch of shit for bringing this stuff in here so I hid it under my clothes and snuck it in.”
“You are a criminal after all,” I wrote while wearing a small grin.
“Keep it down. I don’t want anyone to overhear,” he mock scolded, then a note of seriousness bled into his voice. “There was a reason I brought you here.”
He sat down next to me and sipped at his coffee before continuing. I frowned and waited for the other shoe to drop. I knew this was all too good to be true.
“The picture you gave me of the bird. The black and white swallow.” Wreck set the coffee down and opened the paper bag. He pulled out a large pad of paper and a full set of colored pencils. “I want another one. This time with some more color.”
My eyes became saucers when he put the pad and pencils in my hands.
“Are you serious?” I wrote, my hands shaking. Then I couldn’t hold back any longer. I had to finally ask, “Why? Why all this?”
“Why not,” he replied without a hint of anything. There was nothing in voice to give him away. The only thing I read on his face was quiet intensity and curiosity.
“Because I’m just a whore.”
“I don’t think you’re just anything. Well, you’re a liar,” he replied evenly, searching my face for reactions. “But that’s OK. We’re all liars.”
Wreck wanted something from me, but aside from tightening my lips I didn’t give him anything. When you knew you couldn’t speak it became easier to hide your emotions most of the time.
“What do you want from me?” I wrote.
“The truth.” Wreck’s brown eyes narrowed on me. “You aren’t like the rest of the girls in Patrick’s stable. Why is that?”
When I didn’t make a move to write anything his expression shifted to that of disappointment. I wasn’t trying to play hard to get or even be misleading. There were just some things I couldn’t tell anyone.
“Ok, Whore, if I’m your client then you have to do what I want.” Wreck replied through a sigh, realizing I wasn’t going to answer the questions he wanted. “And I want you to draw. A picture in every room. Just for me.”
Every room? I cocked my head inquisitively.
“Oh, you thought this was all there was?” Wreck looked around at the impressive man-made jungle and smirked. “We’re just getting started. Wait’ll you see the penguins.”
5
Wreck
That girl…
Dusk was falling when I watched Sarah run back into the laundromat. We got back to the motel on time but Patrick apparently came back early for the pick up so I dropped her off instead. Sarah had been very anxious about that when we found out she missed her ride. I did my best to console her, but it didn't look like it worked. Whatever arrangement she had with Patrick scared the hell out of her. I asked several times for her to tell me what wa
s going on, but she pointed back to a comment in her notepad that just read, I'm fine.
She looked back at me only once, just as she was about to disappear behind the front door. Her hair swished at the motion covering most of her face, except her beautiful, brown eyes. They were fierce and sharp and not all the eyes of any whore I’d ever seen.
There was something so interesting and incredibly out of place about her. I didn’t know what was going on, but I would find out.
She was all I thought about on the ride back to the motel, and when I parked next to all the other bikes I paused a moment and took her sketch pad out from my saddlebags. She thanked me for it, but said she couldn’t keep it. When I asked her why Sarah only gave me one of her infuriating non-answers, saying she just couldn’t.
“You’re alive.” Dreamer muted the TV when I got back into our shared room. He was recently showered, and lying shirtless on the bed listening to the TV while scrolling his phone. “You’ve been gone so long I figured the girl must’ve sucked the life out you.”
“You know how it goes, bro.” I kicked my boots off and crashed on the bed, feeling drained in an altogether different way. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Amen to that.” Dreamer made his way to the mini-fridge and grabbed us two beers.
I opened the sketch book and slowly flipped through each of Sarah’s pictures. It was one thing to see the finished product but to watch her actually draw it was something else entirely. Her focus and skill was intoxicating. It was like watching a sexy singer perform and I was the only one in the audience.
When I reached for my beer Dreamer pulled it back, holding it for ransom while he looked over the sketchbook in my lap.
“Since when did you take up drawing?” Dreamer asked, cocking his head to get a better look.
“It’s not mine.”
“Yeah no shit,” he replied sharply, cracking a smile. “You can barely write your own fucking name.”
I gave him a flat look then snatched the beer out of his hand.
“What’s going on?” he asked looking back up at me. Dreamer was a bloodhound. Once he got on the trail of something he was relentless. “You’ve been distracted lately.”
I closed the sketchpad and took a long swig from the can wishing I had something harder to drink.
“What’s your read on Patrick?”
“Garden-variety megalomaniac wannabe.” Dreamer shrugged. “Nothing we haven’t seen before.”
“Something’s going on with the way he runs shit.”
“You mean he’s not an upstanding citizen whose laundromat most definitively isn’t a front for an illegal prostitution ring?” Dreamer feigned surprise, going so far as to gasp out loud. “You, sir, must be mistaken!”
“You’re such an asshole, you know that?” I snorted
“Part of my charm.” Dreamer bowed slightly, then finished his beer and belched loudly. “Now get your hairy white ass up and ready. We’re rolling out in twenty.”
“Fuck that. You and Buck have a great time—”
“Club business,” Dreamer cut in, all the mirth drained from his face.
“What club business?” I asked. There wasn’t anything planned that I knew of. It’d be crazy to go cause some more trouble so soon after setting the two gangs on each other. If you made too much noise too often the wrong people would start to notice. Normally we’d take the night off after a job.
Dreamer filled me in on a last minute job at the laundromat. Patrick was meeting with a local big shot about a potential partnership. Offense, defense whatever, it was all the same to us. He needed some big bastards to stand around and look mean.
And all I could think about was getting the chance to see Sarah again.
We rolled up about an hour later to Patrick bitching about how we were late. Dunkin put a hand on Patrick’s shoulder and reminded him that we weren’t his pets. Squeezing tighter Dunkin leaned in and in a low voice told him in no uncertain words that if he ever attempted this last minute bullshit again we’d leave his ass twisting in the wind.
Patrick was taller than our pres, but that didn’t matter. At a little over five and a half feet, clean-shaven and with not a lot of meat on his bones Dunkin didn’t look like much at a glance. Looks could be deceiving, though, because one look into his steely eyes and you’d know you had the attention of a cold-blooded killer. Dunkin was the only guy I knew that could make a threat through a soft smile and scare the shit out of who he was talking to. Dunkin was an example that you didn’t have to be big or mean to be ruthlessly dangerous
Patrick nodded slowly, understanding what Dunkin was saying. He wouldn’t make that mistake twice, at least not if he knew what was good for him. Afterward he was suddenly all nervous smiles, offering the club to join him in the back room for some drinks while they waited for Billy Bones and his crew to show up. We accepted of course. There was no reason to sit through turf negotiations sober.
Over the initial round of drinks we got to business. Patrick briefed us on this Billy Bones prick and what his reach was just before a small fleet of the blacked-out Hummers pulled up.
It took everything I had not to roll my eyes as Billy and his boys came in for the meeting. They were a bunch of Gucci-wearing, spiky-haired, sunglasses at night, soft-skinned, millennial brats who were playing in their parent’s shoes. The hardest thing about them was the pistols they wore under their tailored thousand dollar suits.
“Buon giorno,” Billy greeted Patrick with a handshake. He had a well-manicured, meticulously maintained image, but also had bones tattooed on the backs of his hands to mirror his actual skeletal system.
Patrick offered Billy a drink, but he turned his nose up to the cheap booze and opted instead for his own gold coated, diamond-encrusted vape pen. Billy and several of his guys puffed away leaving the whole room smelling strongly of medical-grade weed. Patrick shrugged and slid a chair up to the pool table. It was cleared off of balls and had a custom piece of polished plywood covering the felt. It fairly comfortably doubled as a meeting table.
The door that lead to the second floor opened quietly and a small, mousy figure stepped into the room. Sarah walked in with a thick leather-bound ledger, a notepad and a pen, and took a seat next to Patrick at the pool table. Dressed in corporate casual-wear with the addition of her purple scarf, Sarah filled the role as his assistant and note taker. I hadn’t seen her like that before. Like many of the men in the room, my eyes flashed at her presence here. Patrick was quick to offer that she helped him in his business affairs and assured us that she was discrete.
Business affairs huh? Hooker, wounded victim, passionate artist and now this…
How many sides were there to this woman?
I studied her to make sure he hadn't beaten her or anything as punishment for her being late. I'd already spoken with Patrick and explained to him that it was my fault and that Sarah didn't have any idea where I was taking her or why. I even offered to pay him for the extra time spent with her, but he turned me down. He told me it was no big deal, and that our satisfaction with his product was his top priority.
I didn't like hearing him refer to her that way, but thought it best to keep my mouth shut, at least until I knew the whole truth about what was going on here. Sarah averted her gaze from me, obviously not wanting to risk drawing Patrick’s irritation.
With the strained pleasantries out of the way the two men sat down across from each other at the table in Patrick’s large office and got straight to business. Billy was the disgruntled nephew of one of the other old-blood mafioso factions in the city. He wanted our help to stage a coup and take over his family and their holdings; in return Patrick wanted to be Billy’s sole connect for drugs and girls.
We stood along the back wall behind Patrick, and Billy’s crew stood opposite us behind their leader. Every one of us was ready to throw down if things went bad, but, fortunately, it didn’t look like it was going to come to that. Dunk and Dreamer listened to the discussion close
ly knowing that they’d have to figure out a way to put whatever plan the two kingpin wannabes came up with into motion.
I folded my arms and listened halfheartedly all the while trying not to glance at Sarah as she feverishly took notes. She also wrote a few and slid them to Patrick whenever he asked her a question about logistics or various research.
A lock of hair slipped from behind her ear and brushed across her face, but she made no effort to tuck it back. She was too absorbed in keeping up with the conversation. She really was beautiful. I was almost surprised at the naked admiration I felt for her. However desperate her situation truly was, she’d found a way to survive. I’ve buried many friends that couldn’t say the same.
Thoughts of her were rapidly filling up my subconscious mind. The more I was around her, the more I found myself looking forward to getting her alone again.
So what was so special about her?
I definitely yearned for her, but I didn’t really know why. I found her sexy, but so what. I’d been with a sexy woman in every city the club moved to and being that we were nomads we never stayed put for long. Was that it? Was it because we hadn’t actually had sex yet? Or maybe it was something else entirely.
I was also a very curious man by nature and figuring this girl out was the ultimate riddle. Who was she really? For such an obviously smart and talented girl, how did she wind up working in a whorehouse?
Then there was the elephant in the room.
I didn’t see it right away, because she puts on a brave face while working, but today at the aviary I saw what true joy looked like on her. Despite being a criminal, I hated seeing good people taken advantage of and regardless of what she says, Sarah hates it here.
I’m not an idiot; I can hazard a guess as to why she wouldn’t want to be a whore. It ate away at me to not know how. How did this happen to her? What does Patrick have over her keeping her here?
And what was I prepared to do if I found out?
Outlaw's Ride: An MC Romance Page 4
