by Brook Wilder
“Oh, so you were talking about some other gang of low life bikers, was that it sugar? Well, you better get your damn story straight because I sure as hell can’t!”
“Please, Hot Wheels, I just need–I need help. They keep…I keep getting phone calls. In the middle of the day, in the middle of the night. Threats. They all want us to sell to them so they can deal it under the table, but I can’t–no, I won’t! I won’t do it!”
“And I’m not asking you to! The other gangs are getting nervous, Carla. Just, hear him out. Sparkplug has a lot of ideas–”
“A lot of ideas I’m not interested in, Hot Wheels. Your job was to tell them that. To make sure that they backed off…”
Carla’s words trailed off as she collapsed in to the chair, her voice still raised and Elle carefully, as quietly as she could, backed out of the office the way that she’d come in. Her thoughts raced, trying to make sense of the argument. She could still hear their shouts even as she walked around the side of the offices and headed towards the greenhouse. Not that she knew what to do there. Elle just wanted away from the argument. Confrontation always made her nervous.
Ever since she was a little kid it had bothered her. Any sort of fight, any sort of tension. It made her anxiety spike almost as much as being in large crowds did and that was enough to make her palms sweat and her heart race like it was trying to gallop out of her chest.
Her thoughts were still tangled up on what she’d overheard but as she reached for the greenhouse door, just pulling it open, a sudden noise stopped her. It was soft at first, a rumbling that grew into a roar that split through the air like a knife as it drew closer and closer. It was a sound that she had become unfortunately familiar with in the past year. It was the sound of a motorcycle engine revving down the highway, and then down the drive towards the farm, where she was still standing out in the open just staring.
Elle quickly ducked behind the door, moving more from instinct than any real fear but she was glad she did when the bike finally rolled to a sputtering stop next to her compact car. It was black. Or it used to be, before rust and scratches had marred its gleaming surface and it was obvious that it had been crashed more than once.
She raised her gaze slowly, holding her breath as she peaked out from behind the edge of the greenhouse opening. The motorcycle’s owner was in no better shape than his ride in a beat up leather jacket. At first glance it looked like every other jacket the members of the Dirty Cruisers wore but she tilted her head to one side as she noticed it. There was something wrong with it. The patches weren’t the same.
He was still too far away for her to see what they were but she could tell at that distance that they were definitely different. And that meant this guy wasn’t a member of the Dirty Cruisers, at least she was fairly certain, and that meant that he didn’t belong there. But that still begged the question. What, exactly, was he doing there?
It didn’t take long for him to answer her question when instead of heading in the direction of the office, where the sound of voices were still audible, he went the opposite way. Suspicious, Elle thought to herself. Very suspicious.
She watched him for a long moment as he walked slowly, obviously trying not to draw anyone’s attention and Elle shrank even further behind her hiding spot. But her eyes still tracked him as he moved around, poking around the barrels and bins that were lined up in front of the large building. Elle barely held back a snort of laughter as he lifted one of the lids and sniffed, jerking away with a gasp. The only thing he was going to find in there was the compost and manure and she knew for a fact just how bad it smelled.
Next, he headed for the tool shed that had been left swinging open and Elle sent a hasty look over her shoulder towards the office. She prayed silently that someone else, anyone else would notice the intruder and come out and deal with him but as time passed and no one else appeared it became obvious. No one was coming. It was just her.
With a sigh of resignation, her stomach twisting into tight, painful knots, she looked back towards the spot he’d just been and jumped in surprise. He was gone. What the heck? Where had he disappeared too?
Elle moved before she could give herself time to second guess herself. She pushed open the door and strode in the direction he’d taken…except that he was there. Elle bit her lip in frustration. He’d been there just a second ago. Where could he have gone too? And more importantly, what was that scoundrel up to? Because scoundrel he certainly was, of that she had no doubt.
Elle took off at a trot around the side of the greenhouse. Maybe she could catch up with him around the back but as soon as she turned the corner she halted with a shriek.
“Ahh!”
Wait a minute. That shriek hadn’t belonged to her!
“You! You…stop right this instant!” she said sternly, using her best teacher voice, the one that she had to use when her students that were particularly recalcitrant and it worked just as well on the intruder as it did on them. He jerked to a halt, throwing up his hands and as he turned around to face her Elle thought he might just be more surprised by her appearance than she herself was.
“Hey lady, I don’t want no trouble.”
“Any,” Elle bit off the word, glancing quickly over her shoulder as adrenaline hit her hard.
“What?”
“You don’t want any trouble.”
“That’s what I said,” the biker said and now that Elle got a closer look at him she hastily revised her initial impression of him. He was actually in much worse shape than his rust bucket of a bike.
“No,” Elle said slowly, as if talking to a child, “You said you don’t want no trouble. Which in fact means that you do want trouble. That what you don’t want is the absence of trouble.”
He stared at her blankly for a long moment, his greasy hair falling into his face as he shook his head in confusion.
“What the hell are you talking about? That don’t make no sense.”
Elle sighed at his words, “No, it’s not–” she cut off her own attempt to correct him again. She didn’t even know why she was trying. It was obviously hopeless. “Listen, I just wanted to give you a head start.”
“A head start for what?” he asked, looking at her suspiciously now and she firmed her expression, making it as serious and harsh as she could.
“A head start before the police get here.”
“The pigs?”
“They saw you. In the office. Sneaking around. The cops are on the way as we speak so I suggest you leave before they get here. I’m just letting you know out of the goodness of my heart.”
He cast a nervous glance behind her, towards where the road was that led to the farm before turning back to her.
“You sure?”
“Positive,” Elle said, praying that he would believe her. He didn’t seem bright enough to believe she’d lie to him, “I overheard the call myself. They were dispatching three squad cars as we speak.”
“Three?” he squeaked, “There weren’t supposed to be no cops.”
“Wasn’t. There wasn’t– you know what, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you need to go, now, before they get here.” Elle stared at him, shooing at him with her hands when he still didn’t move, “Well? Go! Now!”
The intruder cast her one last wide eyed, slightly confused look before rushing at her. Elle froze, every muscle tensing in her body, but he didn’t stop. He ran right past her and didn’t stop until he reached his motorcycle and then a moment later the sound of an engine roaring to life once more filled the air. But it was soon gone, disappearing along with the rest of her bravado and she collapsed in a quivering heap against the side of greenhouse.
Chapter 8
Elle stayed like that for a long moment, just leaning there with a sinking feeling stuck hard in her gut, and no matter how she tried to reassure herself, it didn’t budge. It occurred to her suddenly, like a bolt of lightning. She needed to tell Joel and Carla. Now. They needed to know what had happened. It seemed bad, esp
ecially in the wake of all the tension in the Dirty Cruisers, and what seemed like just as much tension in the other gangs as well.
It had seemed like hours that she’d watched him sneak around suspiciously, but in reality it had been mere minutes. She could tell because as she forced her legs to move again, one shaky step at a time, and pulled open the office door, Carla and Hot Wheels were still in the midst of what sounded like the same argument as earlier. It also sounded like they hadn’t gotten anywhere with it and now Joel stood between them, trying to act like some sort of mediator between the two women. And it looked like he wasn’t doing that great of a job.
“…Hot Wheels, you know why we’re doing this. You of all people know how close we came when everything went down with Maurice. Shit, you were in prison for six months because of that prick!” Joel said, one hand raised up in either direction as if that would hold them off.
“I knew the risks, Joel. We always know the risk,” Hot Wheels shot back, “I’m just saying that you should give him a chance. Hear him out. That’s all I’m asking, but if someone wasn’t being so stubborn and thick headed to understand–”
“Oh, I’m the one being stubborn. Ha!” Carla interrupted with a harsh bark of a laugh, “You haven’t listened to a word I said!”
“And you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, either!” Hot Wheels shouted right back again before turning away on a growl of frustration. She ran her fingers through her shoulder length white blonde hair.
“Both of you need to stop this. Right now,” Joel said, his voice attempting to calm the two women who were still both glaring at each other, “You’re friends, right? Right?” He demanded again when they were silent and he waited for both of their reluctant nods before continuing, “Listen, with everything that’s happening, everything with the Dirty Cruisers, and the Nomads, we need our friends now more than ever. We need people we can trust, and Carla, you know you can trust Hot Wheels with your life.”
Carla slowly nodded again, her glare fading to a look of contrition as Joel turned back towards Hot Wheels, “And Wheels, you know that you can trust Carla. Not only with your life, but to do the best that she can do. Not just for her, or for me. But for the Cruisers, too. If they’ll let her,” he muttered the last under his breath but Hot Wheels was still nodding as well and some of the tension finally eased between the two women.
There was a long moment of silence and Elle silently applauded Joel. She hadn’t been sure of her best friend’s choice in boyfriends when she’d first met the now president of the biker club, but she’d learned over the past year that sometimes, you really can’t judge a book by his cover.
She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn’t realize everyone had finally noticed she was there, and three sets of eyes were glued to her.
“Elle?” Carla’s voice made her jolt in surprise, dragging her mind back to the reason she was standing there in the doorway in the first place. It wasn’t that hard because the adrenaline from just moments ago was still pumping hard through her system making her legs shake as she forced herself the rest of the way inside. With a sigh of relief, she collapsed into one of the armchairs that was staged against the left side wall and took a deep breath.
She was worried her legs were going to give out before she could reach out and her voice was still trembling with nerves as she forced the words out.
“Ahem, well. Yes, I was–I got back from the clubhouse and then I came in here to talk to Carla, you know, about what I should do next to help out but you were, well, Carla and Hot Wheels were–”
“Yeah, I think I know exactly what they were doing,” Joel said, interrupting her with a censorious look towards both women before turning his gray gaze back towards Elle, “but I’m assuming these two grown women arguing isn’t what has you as pale as a ghost’s ass.”
“What?” Elle asked, startled by his analogy, “No, no. It wasn’t that.” She shook her head, giving him a sideways look, “Ghost’s…ass?” she murmured to herself, repeating Joel’s…colorful language before pulling herself out of it and focusing once more on what had happened.
“It wasn’t them fighting, although he’s right, you know, you are two, fully grown women who should know better.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not our mother,” Hot Wheels shot back, her pale green eyes narrowed in her direction and Elle shifted uncomfortably in the chair.
“Right, not my business,” she swallowed hard before going on, “So Carla and Hot Wheels were arguing so I went back outside to give them time to…well, time to cool off a little. I was heading towards the greenhouse when I heard a motorcycle pull up.
“I didn’t hear it,” Carla said, her brows lowered and Joel gave her a sideways, sardonic look, softened somewhat by the grin that spread across his face.
“Well, you were a little preoccupied. And the two of you were shouting at each other so loudly I’m not surprised you didn’t hear anything else.”
“Anyways,” Elle said, interjecting, “I was about to walk into the greenhouse, the motorcycle pulled up and this guy got off. He started poking around. He looked really suspicious. So, I followed him.”
“Who was he?” Joel demanded, his voice suddenly hard, scary, and Elle had no problem seeing how he’d come to be the youngest president the Dirty Cruisers had ever had. But she still couldn’t answer his question.
“I don’t know. I didn’t recognize him. I’ve never seen him before.”
“Fuck!” Joel bit off the curse, pacing furiously back and forth in the small office in obvious frustration. He stopped when his path brought him back in front of her, “Do you remember what he looked like? Can you describe him?”
“He had dark hair, really greasy looking. I think he had hazel eyes, but I’m not sure. Skinny, kind of wiry and nervous,” Elle paused, shrugging, “I’m sorry that’s all I got.”
“What about his bike?” Hot Wheels asked suddenly.
“His motorcycle? It was in bad shape. All rusted out and dented like it had been crashed more than a few times. Why?”
Hot wheels was quiet for a long moment and Joel turned towards her.
“What is it, Wheels? You know this guys?”
“Maybe,” she answered slowly, her light green eyes lost in thought, “It could be Keebler, one of the Nomad’s, but…then again, it could be anyone from the other gangs wanting a piece. That’s why it’s so important that you talk to Sparkplug–”
“We’re not having this conversation again, Hot Wheels,” Joel interrupted, “I told you, it’s Carla’s business, it’s Carla’s call. Got it?”
“Yeah, boss. I got it,” Hot Wheels said, sounding sullen, but sincere.
“What happened next?” Carla asked, and it took Elle a moment to realize the question was directed at her.
“Oh, um. I lied,” Elle shrugged, looking abashed as she answered, “I told him you guys had seen him and called the cops and I was letting him know out of the goodness of my heart.” She shook her head, still not quite believing that he had fallen for it, “He wasn’t the brightest, I will say that. Terrible grammar.”
“That definitely sounds like Keebler,” Hot Wheels said under her breath.
“Maybe, but we don’t have proof, so…” Joel trailed off rubbing his hand over his mouth as he thought.
“So, what? Where does that leave us, then?” Carla asked, finishing his sentence, “What do we do now? We need to do something.”
“I…agree with Carla,” Hot Wheels said slowly, in obvious pain at the admission but then shrugged good naturedly, “When you’re right, you’re right. And this time she is. We have to do something about this, otherwise it’s only going to get worse. And not just with the other crews. We need to do something about the Cruisers too, Joel. Otherwise, you’re going to lose them.”
Joel was silent for a tense moment and three pairs of eyes watched him, waiting to see what he’d say next. Finally, he gave one firm nod, his expression resigned.
“Alright. Then
we do something. We’ll start brainstorming. Hot Wheels, you call everybody in that you can. Everybody that’s still one hundred percent loyal.”
Hot Wheels gave another pained look, but Elle could tell it was for a different reason. She nodded her head slowly before pulling out her phone and turning away. Joel pulled a chair up the desk, using it as a makeshift table, and waved for Elle and Carla to join him.
“Okay, so here are our options…”
***
Honey looked around the small office and the even smaller group of people meeting inside it. Carla and Joel were talking low and quiet about something, their heads bent together, and Hot Wheels was standing against one wall next to Tucker. She kept casting thoughtful stares at Carla and he wondered why for a moment, but then his attention was diverted once again by the woman sitting by herself in the padded armchair. Elle.
