by R. J. Lewis
This was messy.
“Reid,” he said quietly, “let the men talk.”
Reid was twitchy, though. He looked around the room, calculating.
“I got men, you know,” he then said, looking back at Number One. “They’ll be here shortly.”
“No, they won’t,” Number One replied. “If you knew what you were getting into, you wouldn’t have showed without them. You came because you thought this place would be packed with witnesses, and because you don’t trust anyone at the moment. Isn’t that right?”
Reid licked his dry lips, thinking. “Have you been paying some of my men off?”
“Maybe.”
The suited man stood up now, oozing confidence as he left Thames’ side and walked about the room. “This can be easy and no one has to get hurt.”
“You want our contacts,” Reid reiterated. “Does that mean you’ll leave my shop alone?”
“Sure,” the man said, a deceptive smile spreading on his face. “We’ll leave your shop alone.”
“I don’t have them on me.”
“Tell me where your father is.”
Reid breathed harder, looking tense. “I can’t do that, but I can get the contacts from him.”
“Why can’t you tell us where he is?”
Reid didn’t answer. He surveyed the room again, meeting Thames’ eye. A look of sadness flitted briefly through his face as he answered, “Because he’s hiding.”
The suited man came to a stop in front of Reid, staring at him curiously. “Hiding from what?”
Reid’s eyes still hadn’t left Thames. Thames felt a strange feeling spread through him at the look he was giving him. Swallowing, Reid finally looked back at Number One. “You don’t know what this town’s been through the last few years. You can’t begin to understand what we’ve been fighting. There’s a dark underbelly, and my shop? I don’t pocket a penny more than I need. I spend every bit of everything I got to fight that underbelly.”
What did he mean?
Thames stared hard at Reid, confused.
Those words reminded him of Charlotte and what she said to him the night he’d found Locke’s texts.
There is a poison in this town you’re not privy to, Conor.
There it was again, something was not adding up, but Thames could almost taste it now. He was so close.
“I took your gold, Conor, because I needed money,” Reid explained then, like this was the only opportunity he had. “That part was my deception. I was greedy and desperate to get the shop going. I’m sorry for burning your old man’s place down. My dad was bloodthirsty and pissed about Billy and…at the time we were still at odds with you, with Locke. Until we found a common goal…”
“What the fuck is this?” said Number One, chuckling. “Why the fuck are we talking about this?”
“Because I’m not telling you where my father is,” Reid declared just then, sweeping his eyes back to him. “And I’m letting my cousin know that right here, right now, we aren’t enemies. It’s important my father hides, and you?” He smiled coldly as he stared at the man, eyes bright now. “You with your ugly fucking suit, strolling around the place like you own it. You, who doesn’t even know the truth about the crew you’re in. You, you’re not Number One.”
The door of the bar opened, and a bloody, suited figure stepped in. Thames stiffened as he took in the gory state of Locke. His suit was soaked in blood, his hands were covered in it, his face was pale and sickly. He stopped, standing purposely in front of…
Charlotte.
Thames’ heart halted in his chest. He stood up abruptly, panicked.
Reid glanced at Locke as he stopped beside him and smiled. “Your timing is impeccable, Locke.”
Locke surveyed the room and everyone in it.
“Who the fuck is this guy?” Holden growled.
“Leave the bar, Charlotte,” Thames gritted out, stuck because he couldn’t turn his back on Holden and because the other two men were moving again, the guns they’d hidden now drawn.
Charlotte’s eyes were wide. She hadn’t anticipated walking into this. She stood still, too stunned to move.
“No, she stays,” Holden said with a chirpy smirk. “You come in, you’re not gonna just walk out.”
Thames gnashed his teeth, fighting the tremors in his body.
Locke only blinked in Holden’s direction before looking at the suited man in front of him. He looked him over head to toe, and the man stared back, brows coming together slowly.
“What the fuck are you supposed to be?” Locke questioned, sounding almost insulted.
“I’m Number One,” the man retorted. “You looking for a death wish or something?”
Locke glanced around the room again, looking annoyed now. “I should have been more mindful of the cracks in this crew. It’s always something. It’s never straightforward. It’s never easy with you shits.”
The suited man took a step closer to him, seething, “If I were you, I’d be very mindful of the precarious situation you’ve found yourself in.”
“Precarious,” Locke repeated, a cool smile forming his lips. “That’s cute.”
“Fuck back off –”
“You’re prancing about in a fucking suit, at least have it tailored.”
“What the fuck –”
“Buying it in a local mall is a serious insult to me –”
“Who the fuck do you think you are –”
Locke raised his hand, aimed the gun at the man’s head and pulled the trigger.
And just like that, everything turned messy.
The body fell to the ground. The shock settled in for a heartbeat… and then everyone reacted.
Jem pulled a shotgun from under the bar and blasted it at the man raising his gun at Locke. He cocked it again just as Holden leaped over the bar and grabbed the head of the shotgun; Jem fired it in the struggle, and the bullets ripped through the air, leaving holes in the ceiling. Thames lunged at Holden, swinging his arm around his neck and hauling him back to the ground. Holden swung his hand around, blade slashing in the air.
“Jem,” Thames gritted out, fighting for the knife. “Make sure Charlotte’s okay.”
But Locke made sure of it, standing in front of her and at the other man whose gun was raised at them, but he hadn’t fired.
Thames moved over top of Holden, gripping his wrist in one hand. He banged it against the floor as Holden bucked beneath him, hitting at Thames’ face with his free hand. One harder slam against the ground and Holden’s grip around the blade loosened. Thames quickly gripped the blade with his hand, uncaring that it cut through him as he ripped it out of Holden’s hand. Then he tossed it across the room, panting now as he sat on top of him, making sure he was going nowhere.
There was just the last man with the gun still raised at Locke, but he was wavering as he looked over the room, at the dead suited man on the floor, at the other with gigantic holes torn through his side, at Jem, whose shotgun was now turned in his direction.
“Drop the gun,” Locke demanded, glancing coolly at him.
Knowing he was outnumbered, he dropped the gun and raised his arms out, pleading, “I just follow orders.”
“No,” Locke replied cruelly. “You went off the grid is what you did.”
Then he shot him too. Straight in the face. The man was dead before he hit the ground, and now Locke was advancing in Thames’ direction, holding that gun steady as he approached.
“Who sent you?” Holden asked, staring up at Locke with surprise. “Was it Number One?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Locke retorted, and Holden went silent, his eyes crazed and panicked.
Locke stopped by at the bar, dishevelled and tired, right across from Jem who’d lowered the shotgun but was still gripping it tight. Locke slammed the gun down on the counter and began to undress. First the jacket went, and then he was unbuttoning his blood-stained shirt.
“You know ravens represent loss,” he muttered, looking back at Thames n
ow who was staring back at him. “You endure the worst hell and come out reborn on the other side. Changed and blackened, like the plumage of a raven. Was that explained to you, Conor, just before you got inked?”
Thames nodded steadily. “Yeah.”
“When I climbed out of that hole, changed and blackened, a raven flew to me, stood by my side, staring down at me like he knew what I felt. I wanted to die, and he flew around me, cawing at me as if to tell me to keep going. So, I did.”
Locke slipped the shirt off and threw it down on the counter, turning so Thames could see him. Thames’ eyes dropped to Locke’s chest, and his body went rigid at the sight of the large tattoo of a raven right over his heart and shoulder.
And now he was undoing his watch, saying, “When I got out of there, I carried the faces of the men that hurt me for years and years. I kept thinking…how do I find them? I wanted my revenge, but I needed a way. I needed money. I figured instead of just defending criminals in the court, I could recruit them too. I could have a crew do the dirty for me, and while I did that, I needed to generate money, have my fingers in everything so that I could generate enough money to hunt down these people. I didn’t realize along the way I’d crack open a twisted world in this town we’d never known existed.”
Removing the broken watch, he settled it gently over his shirt on the counter and dropped his wrist to his side, but Thames caught the ink there.
He saw the number 1.
“Ever wonder why no one went looking for me?” Locke asked now. “I was in that hole for weeks, and yet everyone was looking elsewhere.”
Thames nodded. “Corruption.”
Jem stared down at the counter, saying nothing.
“They turned the other cheek because they were paid to do so,” Locke explained. “Sick fucks like Henry Tiller with their philanthropic image, pouring money in poor children, in that Boy Scouts he was obsessed about visiting every summer. Henry Tiller, with all that money, with all those businesses, decided to say hello to me in that hole. Do you know what that was like having to see him in town after I’d come out? To know what he’d done to me and never being able to confront him about it? I kept my mouth shut, put my head down, pretended I didn’t remember what happened in there, whose faces I saw, but I catalogued them all and waited for my time. Henry Tiller was sentenced to a prison far from here, but it didn’t matter. I’ve got men in most of them now. My crew killed him in there, and it didn’t taste good enough. I realized the only way I could do it was with my own bare hands.
“The more you dig in this town, the more you realize how parasitic it is. There’s a ring right under our noses, filled with these powerful people who abuse children, who traffic women, who put out hits on anyone close enough to find out. It’s bigger than Blackwater. We’re just a chain link in a fence that stretches far as the eye can see.”
“Dave,” Thames uttered, trying to compose himself, “why is he hiding?”
Reid answered. “Our contact list comprised of people who needed rebadged vehicles. Sometimes they’d bring cars around for us to dispose of or rip apart. We usually never asked questions, didn’t want to know who used to own them. We figured they were just boosted vehicles, until my old man came across an ID of a woman who’d gone missing in the city. It didn’t sit right for him. He started to dig around, turned to Locke who’d had the resources to sniff around for us. Found out these sick fucks liked to come to us to dispose of the evidence. Locke made points of contact to all chop shops after that, gave them a good kick for information of any kind dealing with particular customers. A lot of them were part of the ring Locke was just telling you about. My dad got too close, too involved to a case, and it got dangerous for him.”
“They’re wise choosing their victims,” Locke said. “They know to find the people who don’t have a support system, who can disappear from the system without raising a brow. Blackwater may be just a pitstop in this web of depravity, but it has a chance to be more than that. It can be cleansed of these monsters. If we have the nerve to bring children into this world, it’s our responsibility to ensure they’re safe and thriving. Turning the other cheek makes us no better than the monsters who take them.”
Thames said nothing. He looked across the room and at Charlotte. She was staring back at him with tear filled eyes. So this was the secret then. This was why she supported Locke unwaveringly, and it all made sense. Because Thames would have supported him, too.
Jem was still quiet, still staring at the counter like all he wanted to do was run the other way.
And Holden.
Thames looked back down at him. Holden was quaking beneath him, his eyes laser focused on Locke. When Locke caught the look, Holden went rigid with terror.
“Your orders were to protect Conor,” Locke said quietly. “They were explicit, given to you by number two. They were your only orders. Why didn’t you do it?”
Holden was red and sweating. “I don’t know,” he lied. “I must have gotten the orders wrong.”
“No,” Thames murmured now, shaking his head. “You thought I wouldn’t make it. There were so many opportunities I could have died. Even after I was inked, trouble found me. I couldn’t turn my back on anybody. That’s what you wanted, Holden.”
Holden was breathing heavy. “I’m sorry, alright? I’m real sorry about that, Thames. I was probably just a little jealous and young. This was how many years ago, man?”
“You followed me to Blackwater. You came to my home and threatened me –”
“It wasn’t my idea.” Holden desperately looked at Locke. “And we never ripped the crew off. It wasn’t our intention. I sniffed around a bit, I was curious about Thames, and then I found out about the chop shop and figured we could cook something quick on the side just for us, separate from the crew.”
“You started a fucking fire at one of my shops, you little cunt,” Reid fumed. “You had me thinking the only person with enough cheek to do that to me was Locke –”
“I’ve been a good member,” Holden dismissed, still staring at Locke. “I did a lot for the crew, you can’t deny that. I’ve done everything in my power to try and meet you, man. It’s all I ever wanted. You’ve been an enigma, a fucking legend or something. Sometimes we don’t even think Number One’s real.”
Locke wasn’t looking at him anymore. He appeared bored now, grabbing at his watch. “You’re lucky the trunk of my car is already full, Holden. If I were you, I’d get up right now and run. I don’t want to see your face.”
Thames got off Holden and the maggot jumped to his feet. “Thank you, Number One, thank you –”
“Fuck off, Holden.”
Holden fucked off, running straight out of the bar like the sissy he was.
Thames shot Locke a look. “You’re really letting him go?”
Locke was fastening his watch when he answered, “He won’t make it a block before my men grab him.”
“The crew?”
“No, that’s separate.” Locke met his gaze. “I’ll never show myself to the crew. The second they see me I’ll be reduced to just a man. The numbers, they fuck with your head, they make you think the lower they get, the more of a paradox the person inked with them is. It’s all psychological but it works.”
Thames collapsed on the stool beside Locke, dumbfounded.
“I doubted you,” he confessed. “I thought you were using Charlotte, I was pissed when you claimed I was safe in prison, I…had the cruellest thoughts.”
“Yeah,” Jem finally spoke up, agreeing. He swallowed hard, and that was all he said. “Yeah.”
Locke watched Thames, a tender expression forming. “You were my buddy, Conor. You were my only friend. You said to me, ‘You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. Hide behind the car if you have to. I’ll look there last.’ If I had listened to you and not tried to prove myself, I would have hidden behind the car and we would all have gone home together.”
It hurt to breathe. Thames choked out, “I went ba
ck, Max. I told myself you needed me. I said to the man in the green coat, ‘Take me instead.’ I would have traded places in a heartbeat. I’m sorry. You understand? I’m sorry for burying it, for not doing enough. I’m sorry, Max.”
Max studied Conor, shaking his head slowly. “There is nothing you could have done. It happened. It’s done. You never put me in the hole. I’m fighting so that other kids never have to be put in one, either. I don’t care if my hands turn red from all the blood I have to shed. It’s my purpose now. It’s what I’ve been pushing myself to do the entire time you’ve been shut inside a cell. Like I said to you, I grinded while you were away. I should have paid more attention to Holden. I got comfortable with the crew, left the right people in charge but there’s always a snake in the system, and they find each other. These four morons could have caused a lot of harm. That’s my fault and now I have a big mess to clean up.”
What followed was a long stretch of silence. There were three dead bodies in the room, a fourth dead body on the way, and Locke was pulling out his phone from his pocket and texting somebody. Then he turned and tossed the phone at Charlotte. Reid had been by her side, arm wrapped around her shoulder like he’d been helping her stand up straight. He caught the phone for her because she was too dazed. Then he passed it over.
“Who am I calling?” she asked weakly.
“The clean-up crew.”
She stepped outside to make the call. Thames could tell she just needed to be out of there.
“What a fucking night,” Reid uttered under his breath, running a hand through his hair. “After this, I need to see my boy.” He looked at them. “You guys need me for anything?”
“Yeah,” Thames replied, tightly. “You owe me a house, Reid.”
Reid let out a forced laugh. “You know, Thames, you’re right. I’m good for it now.”
“Thanks to me.”
“Yeah, well…there’s still a place in the shop for you.”
“Not a chance.”
