Disposable Souls

by Phonse Jessome

  I left the outlaw life, but I’m still tied to the club. My father founded the Satan’s Stallion, so it’s always going to be part of me. I have the lifer tattoo on my chest, my ticket to Stallion rides and parties. The only time I go to a club ride is when Gunner drags me along. My brother followed me to Afghanistan. When I got captured, he signed up for a second tour and went to Iraq to punish everyone he could find. He saw more combat than I did. He also saw things differently when he got home. To him, the drug trade here helps the rebuilding efforts there. He doesn’t give a shit about rebuilding anything; he just plays it that way.

  I drifted after I left the Stallion. For a while, I missed it, but mostly I drank too much and tried to hide from memories of Ronald, exploding bodies, and knotted ropes. I think Glenda got me through it, but I’m not clear on that. I have these images of her sitting beside me while my body revolted from the latest binge. I call them my good flashbacks. She’d stroke my hair and smile, and I’d feel safe. I’d sleep after that but when I woke she’d still be dead and I’d still be a drunk.

  I know now it was probably Greg sitting at my side, the black sheep of the Neville family. Or the white collar. My baby brother, the priest. He pulled me out of the self-pity cycle in the end. Funny, I know I wouldn’t be standing here without Greg, but I still don’t think about him much. He just hadn’t been a part of my life until those dark days. Gunner and I were raised in one world, Greg in another. He turned out fine, we didn’t. Fractured families are like that.

  Truth is, my drinking got so bad the club would have tossed me anyway. Getting loaded is expected; being a falling-down drunk is not tolerated. A real drunk might mumble secrets in the wrong ears, not a risk the Stallion would take. If they knew how bad I got, they would have killed me to be safe. Now I’m sober and what the club calls “out in good.” It means I am in good standing and not a liability. It also means I must respect all Stallion secrets. That does not keep me in good standing with those OMG cops who want my badge so bad. Fuck them.

  Blair is the only cop who really accepts my Stallion ties. I hoped they weren’t going to hurt him now. I didn’t like the idea of a case that would force me to put the club under the microscope. I knew I’d see things a cop isn’t supposed to look away from, out in good or not. I turned back to the group in front of me.

  “Goddammit, Detective Constable Neville, I’m talking to you.” The inspector had turned his attention my way. “Give me something here. I’m going to be briefing the media in just a few minutes.”

  “Well, sir, we don’t have anything Sergeant Cage didn’t cover. We believe Gardner was dumped here, and strangulation is the likely cause of death. Both facts have to be hold-back.”

  Hold-back evidence can slam a cell door faster than a guilty plea. We always keep evidence away from the media and even the victim’s family. A confession containing hold-back facts is a big club for a prosecutor to wield in court. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

  “So, what? You want me to waltz over to the cameras and say, ‘Sorry, folks nothing to see here. Move along now.’ They’ll love that. Hell, why don’t you try to sell it?”

  “Sir, I don’t care what they love. I only care about the case, and I’d like to get back to it. Blair and I need to get to Pastor Gardner’s home and get the notification done before some reporter knocks on the door.”

  “What about your friends over there? I hear they came to see you.” MacIntosh nodded toward the Stallion compound. “Why don’t you go over for old times’ sake? Have a cup of coffee and take a peek at their video. Let the media speculate on a biker angle. That should keep them spinning. Just don’t get too comfortable in there.”

  “Going to be tough to get them off the club once they head down that road, no matter who the vic is,” I said.

  “A problem why?”

  I locked eyes with the bigger, older cop, then looked at Carla. She avoided my gaze. I felt a hand on my left arm. “Let’s go, partner.” Blair pulled me toward the compound across the street. I stopped him mid-stride, shook my head.

  “Stay with the body. Dr. Ian should be ready to flip him over, and you can get a better look at that tattoo. Get Sergeant Cage to get us a good picture of it.”

  “Ah, come on. I don’t get to see the inner sanctum?” Blair flashed that smile.

  “It’s bad enough I’m going to piss in Snake’s cornflakes. He’ll go into full asshole mode if I try to take you in. We don’t want him erasing any video.”

  Blair moved off. I watched as MacIntosh straightened his uniform and placed his hat carefully on his oversized head. Carla Cage began to peel off her bodysuit, but the inspector reached over to stop her. A real forensic cop in real forensic coveralls: good TV. The two moved to the cameras. I thought I was stepping back in time when I first ducked under the yellow tape just before sunrise. When I walked through the door on the other side of the street I’d be taking a bigger step. I was walking back into Gunner’s world.

  Chapter 2

  Gunner moved down the short hallway into the warehouse the Stallion called home. The smell of stale beer, cigarettes, and gun oil filled the air. He listened to the three deadbolts slide into place as the door closed behind him. He stood where the hallway opened into the main room. A Skynyrd tune blared from the overhead speakers, a swampy groove. He smiled. Grease had finally figured out the sound system.

  Gunner looked at his club president. Snake was in his leather recliner in the centre of the room, a big remote pointed at the theatre-sized screen on the wall. Two fighters were kicking and punching each other inside a caged octagon. The fight stopped as Snake stabbed the remote with a jewelled finger and reached for a beer. He flicked his long blonde hair as he settled back into the chair and opened the can. He punched the remote again; the fight resumed.

  Further into the room, Grease sat on the floor, pulling a wire brush through the barrel of a MAC-10 machine pistol. Gunner nodded as Grease looked up and pointed the empty weapon with a grin. At sixty-two, Grease was the oldest member of the Satan’s Stallion. He and Snake were the only original members left and among the few still in the game who had ridden with Gunner’s old man. Grease had never spent a night behind bars and was a legend among all the outlaw clubs. His white hair and goatee were spotless. His clothes were not. The boxy jeans and long-sleeved T were tattered and frayed, and both were almost hard with the green-black stain of oil, tranny fluid, and thousands of hours of sweat. He could squeeze power out of a bike Harley’s own techs never would. He was a magician with firearms, too. A good guy to have in any outlaw club. He pushed a set of small spectacles up the bridge of his nose and returned to the gun work.

  A stage, stuffed with drums and amplifiers, sat at the end of the room. A chrome pole rose from the centre and got lost in the darkness overhead. The room was mostly black, the deep blue and silver club colours offering the only contrast. Every piece of furniture had a touch. Even the felt on the three pool tables was Stallion blue.

  Gunner turned as he heard Jimmy Williams approach from behind. He grabbed a fistful of leather and slammed the prospect into the wall, pushing his chest into the small man’s face. Williams stared into Gunner’s chest and said nothing.

  “Read that patch, prospect,” he said.

  There was no menace in his voice, a world of it in his clenched fist.

  “Gunner,” Williams said.

  “I know my fucking name, prospect. Below that.”

  “Vice-president.”

  “And what does it say on the front of your cut? No, wait.” Gunner spun Williams and pushed his face into a steel beam sticking out from the wall. Blood trickled from above his left eye. “Let me see what it says on your back. Not very fucking much.” He released his grip and began to walk to the centre of the cavernous room. “You ever want to fill that back with a patch you better learn to shut up when I tell you, prospect.” Gunner could feel the rage build.


  He knew it wasn’t the prospect. Seeing Cam behind that badge, hearing him give orders like every asshole cop Gunner had ever met. Maybe his brother was just another fucking prick.

  Grease was still fidgeting with the MAC-10. On the floor beside him a partially assembled Harley engine sat bolted to a steel cradle. A few parts covered dirty rags beside it, tools filling the top tray of a red trolley nearby. The bottom tray held solvents, lubricants, and an assortment of tubes and bottles. Some for the engine, others for the gun.

  “What’s the prognosis?” Gunner asked as he knelt next to the engine.

  “Circlip snapped off. Just like I said.” Grease put down the MAC-10 and crouched beside Gunner. “Look here, see the scoring.” He pushed the rod he was using to clean the machine pistol inside the exposed cylinder. Gunner nodded although he didn’t know what to look for.

  “Can you work on it now and lose the 10? We may have company.”

  “Who?” Grease moved around behind the bar, and snapped the components of the MAC-10 together.

  “Cops. Cam maybe,” Gunner said.

  Grease dead eyed him and moved away with the gun. The old biker hated Cam’s badge more than any other Stallion, maybe even more than Gunner. He let the hard stare go and looked at the stage where his guitar leaned against an old Fender amplifier. Gunner could squeeze the blues out of that guitar better than some of the pros. He looked at it now and thought maybe he should crank it up. A little Slash might help him take the edge off. Fuck it, Grease was in a dark place already. He might just put a bullet through the amp. Gunner dropped into the chair beside Snake.

  “Problem with the prospect?” Snake asked.

  Gunner reached between the chairs and pulled a can of beer out of a blue-and-silver cooler. Snapped the top open and took three long swallows before answering.

  “Talks too much.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “The real problem may be little brother.”

  He and Snake looked at a framed picture above the bar. Cam in blue-and-silver trunks standing in the middle of the octagon. The Stallion tattoo prominent on a cut left pec. Every muscle in his six-foot frame popping in the ring lights. That mop of black curls matted to his sweat-soaked head, his smile defiant. A ref holding his hand high while doctors worked on an opponent on the canvas behind him. Hell of a shot. Made the cover of a big mixed martial arts magazine. Made Cam a legend in the Stallion world.

  “Guy had such promise,” Snake said as he pulled on his own beer.

  “War fucked him up.” Gunner raised his beer to the picture.

  “You came back okay.”

  “My ol’ lady didn’t die while I was chained to a rock in East butt-fuck Pakistan,” Gunner said before taking another drink.

  “True enough. So what’s he want?”

  “Somebody got killed over there, and he wants to come see if our cameras caught anything.”

  “Like fuck.”

  “What I told him,” Gunner said, returning to his beer.

  He watched Jimmy Williams hover near the pool tables, waiting for permission to go to bed. Not likely.

  “Prospect,” Snake said.

  Williams moved quickly. His exaggerated swagger rocked his shoulders from side to side. Tiny little prospect showing big-time biker attitude. How the hell could Snake want to pin colours on that? Gunner wondered, not for the first time.

  “Go to the office and check last night’s tapes. Watch the dump. I need to know if there’s anything more interesting than gulls fucking over there. Do it fast but don’t miss anything. Go,” Snake said.

  Williams hustled across the room and disappeared behind a sliding door.

  Gunner pulled the tab from his third beer as he stood behind the bar. This one held the cure. He emptied it in one long drink. He crushed the can in his fist, the inked silhouette of a naked woman dancing on his forearm as the muscles flexed. He looked at the fight playing out silently on the big screen.

  Gunner had been nursing the same buzz for eight months. A fast beer before bed with one on the floor for the wake-up. Beer was the only sensible way to smooth the edges between the days. He’d seen the hard stuff suck the life out of too many bros. Gunner had drinking rules and he rarely broke them. He waited until he was up five hours before letting Jack lift him higher. Tough rule to follow today; he could hear Jack calling from behind the bar. He hadn’t been to bed yet, so maybe the beer rule didn’t apply. Problem was his second rule did. The buzz was turning dark. Adding Jack to a bad buzz could stoke the hate. That never ended well. Seeing Cam with all those fucking cops shoved his head into an ugly place. How could the brother he raised turn on him, on the club? He needed to hurt someone. Maybe go back into the office and kick the prospect around.

  He shook off the idea and pulled an orange-and-black oil can from under the bar. It was a decorative piece of Harley junk someone had left in the clubhouse. He pulled off the lid and savoured the sour smell. He grabbed the small blue-and-silver pipe and pinched off a bit of the pot that filled the can. Just enough to chase the darkness away. It was prime pot from Bear River in the Annapolis Valley. It blew the leaves off the famous BC bud.

  Gunner decided he’d take the two-and-a-half-hour ride to Bear River in a day or so, keep his growers honest with an unexpected visit. The long solo run would do him good. His grow-ops there were his biggest earners. He had a sweet deal with a Mi’kmaw lobster crew fishing out of St. Mary’s Bay. They took the crop out to the Canada-US line and handed it over to a crew from the Aroostook, Maine, reserve. The fisheries patrols stayed away from First Nations boats. Their last attempt to interfere with the traditional native fishery left wharves and boats burning along the coast. There was peace on the water now, and the government didn’t want to do anything to change that. Gunner’s crop quietly made its way to Boston, and the cash flowed back.

  He pushed the tiny bits of grass into the pipe and held a lighter to it. There was an air hole on the smooth front edge, and Gunner placed a finger over it as he drew on the pipe. As the grass glowed red, he removed his finger and inhaled quickly, taking the smoke deep into his lungs, chasing a hard hit. He coughed it out and put his stash back under the counter. An intense body-numbing rush spread to his limbs, smoothing out the alcohol buzz. He smiled. Perfect.

  He dropped back in the chair next to his now sleeping club president and let his mind float. He remembered smoking pot with Cam in the shed outside their mobile home. It was Cam’s first time, and Gunner was his guide. Always the guide for little brother. At least, until Greg stepped in and pulled him away from the club. Greg, the brother Gunner really didn’t know, didn’t understand, didn’t want to. Guy was a priest for fuck’s sake. Off on some pilgrimage in Spain now, total head case. The old lady blew her brains out on a bad meth trip a month after he was born. At the time, Greg was in the hospital coming down off his own addiction, a birthright. Their grandparents took Greg from the hospital and turned him into a Jesus freak. They left Gunner and Cam to fend for themselves with the old man. That went well. Shit, his mind was floating back to the darkness. He tried to shake off the ghosts. He thought maybe another small hit would do it. He sat stuck to the chair pondering that.

  Gunner turned at the squeal of the big steel office door. Williams was back already, waddling across the room with a stupid grin on his heavily pocked face.

  “You smoking my pot back there, prospect?” Gunner reached down and pulled another beer from the cooler.

  “You can’t possibly be finished looking at all that video.” Snake was in the conversation, like he’d never been asleep.

  “Don’t have to,” Williams said, still grinning.

  “The fuck you saying? I gave you a clear fucking order.” Snake slapped Williams on the side of the face with the remote. The grin stayed. It was a glancing blow.

  “You said you need to know. Anything interesting, and you need to know. I saw som
ething.” Full-on, shit-eating grin now.

  “What did you see?” Gunner stood. “Show me.”

  “Let’s go,” Snake said as he stood.

  The grinning prospect led the way. The Satan’s Stallion office sat at the end of a storage room that ran the length of the warehouse. The door opened in the middle of the run. To the right, floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls. Harley parts filled every shelf, most hot, Grease’s stash. To the left, a row of dented metal lockers covered the outer wall. They held leather vests with Stallion colours. The Stallion patch belongs to the club, not the brother wearing it, and most members leave them locked here in the house when not on club business. The habit became popular when the cops seized a full patch during a drug raid on a brother’s home. Seeing the cops show it off on TV was more than Snake could handle.

  The lockers were plastered with decals featuring quotes from the biker bible: Helmet laws suck; Loud pipes save lives; FTW; FTP; Doesn’t play well with others; and of course, We don’t dial 911. The silver-and-blue SFFS and SSMC badges topped every locker. The Stallion Forever Forever Stallion and Satan’s Stallion Motorcycle Club stickers also marked the club bikes. Better protection against theft than any insurance policy. Pin-ups of naked women posed on member’s bikes drew the eye away from the decals. Each autographed with a pledge of devotion to the locker’s owner. Gunner touched the pin-up on his locker as he walked past it; Snake did the same to his. Jimmy Williams had no locker and kept his hands to himself.

  Phil Murphy sat beneath a bank of monitors at the end of the room, the back of the chair a small slab of leather between his shoulders. He stood as Gunner approached. Murphy was the top enforcer with the Litter Box Boys, the street gang handling Stallion drug business in the profitable Spryfield area of the city. Jimmy Williams ran the gang. He was a fuck-up as a prospect, but he kept the Litter Box clean. Had to give him that. Gunner remembered his days in the Box when murder was just a part of the game. Under Williams, the body count had dropped and the police attention faded. Always good for business.