Ned was surprised at how soft and timid Seymour’s handshake was, and how he looked him in the eye for only the briefest of glances. “How you doin’, Seymour?”
“Oh, my name’s not Seymour; it’s Eugene,” the small man grinned. “He just calls me that.” He gestured at André.
“André slapped Ned on the back. “Seymour here is my accountant,” he told him. “Mine, as in I own the motherfucker.” Eugene grinned timidly. Then he softened and looked at Ned in a way that Ned realized he should understand, but didn’t. Then André said: “I call him Seymour because he sees more than he puts into the books.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Seymour started laughing nervously.
“You’d better,” André warned him sternly. Seymour stopped laughing and looked at André silently.
“It’s a pretty good gig you got here, eh?”
“Oh yeah, I do okay.”
“What, you work about eight hours a day?”
“More like ten, since the divorce—it’s been rough.”
“Right, she got half of everything . . . even the dog, right?”
“No, she got all of him.”
“Child support bad?”
“We never had kids.”
“Yeah,” André paused. “I thought you would take her name off the business.”
“Costs too much.”
“Yeah, but doesn’t it remind you?”
Seymour knew he was being abused for André’s pleasure, but there was nothing he could do about it. André was by far his most lucrative client and a large, unpredictable man who had some pretty seedy business interests. “It didn’t really,” Seymour replied. “But it may start to now.”
André laughed. “Sorry, dude; you still got that minivan?”
“No, head gasket blew about three weeks ago; it’d cost more to fix it than the damn thing was worth.”
“Sorry to hear that, man, but it was pretty old . . . so how you getting to work these days?”
“I ride my bike.”
“Not the same one you had in high school?”
Ned was surprised to hear that the two went to high school together. André was no fashion model, but Seymour looked about ten years older.
“No, no, that was stolen years ago; I got this one at the police auction.”
“Ain’t that just like Springfield PD? Trafficking in stolen goods.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Seymour laughed nervously again.
“What you gonna do when winter comes?”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”
“Just gotta keep on peddlin’.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, we just popped in to say ‘hello’; we gotta go.”
“Well, it was nice meeting you Ned and always a great pleasure to see you, Mr. Lachapelle.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t you work too hard there, Seymour.”
As they walked out to André’s truck, Ned said: “Very subtle.”
“You like that?” André grinned back. “You still wanna be an accountant?”
“They aren’t all like that.”
“Basically they are,” André disagreed. “Some make more money than others, but it’s more or less the same fuckin’ thing—working your ass off for some richer motherfucker.”
“It can be a decent way to live.”
“Yeah, if you don’t want a life or dignity or a chance to make it big or any of that other unnecessary stuff.”
Ned exploded into something of a tantrum. “What the fuck do you expect me to do?” he shouted. “Be an astronaut? The only decent marks I have are in math and the fuckin’ business college is the only one who’ll fuckin’ take me!”
André laughed. “Who says you have to go to college? I didn’t.”
“That’s different . . .”
“Why? Because I’m a drug dealer? A criminal? I’d like to remind you, Sonny Jim, you’re one too.”
“Yeah, but . . . I couldn’t do what you do.”
“Maybe you could or maybe you couldn’t, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You could come work for me,” André grinned. “Make more money in the first month than Seymour or your English teacher do in a year.”
“I dunno, man, I don’t think I could do it,” Ned stammered. “There’s some bad dudes out there and there’s the cops and . . .”
“You think I’m asking you to stand on a street corner with a bag of weed and yell ‘Drugs for sale! Drugs for sale!’” André scoffed. “Is that how you think it works?”
“I . . . I . . . I don’t know how it works.”
“It’s actually real easy.” I have a delivery boy—nobody ever suspects him because he has such a sweet face and he’s underage anyway, so no big deal—who takes the product to bars.”
“Yeah.”
“The bartender or some other employee or associate then distributes the product in the bar,” he continued. “Only to people he knows.”
“So how do you get paid?”
“That’s where you come in.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need someone to go to all the bars and collect the cash.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it—and you get five percent. I’d figure it out to be about eight hundred dollars a week.”
“I had no idea you made so much money.”
“Don’t kid yourself, I have lots of expenses.”
“All I have to do is go to bars, grab bags of money, and bring them back to you.”
“Yeah, and once you get the hang of it, you can get your own customers—and I’ll only take ten percent of that, plus my expenses, of course.”
“What’s the catch?”
“There isn’t one. But there are rules,” André stopped the truck by the side of the road and put on the hazard lights. “You treat all my customers with respect, and you give me every penny I deserve.”
“Of course I would.”
André continued as though he hadn’t heard him. “That means if the package is supposed to be $10,000, I get $9,500, no matter what.”
“Makes sense.”
“If the package is light, that’s got nothing to do with me; if I am expecting $9,500 and you get less than that, it’s your responsibility to make it $9,500,” André continued. “No excuses, no credit, no ‘I’ll pay ya later’—you give me my money, all of my money, on the date due.”
“What if they don’t want to pay?”
“Well, that’s why the job pays so well—those fuckers never want to pay—your job is to convince them to pay.”
“How do I do that?”
“The easiest way for you,” André said as he started driving again, “would be to remind them who they are actually paying. Believe it or not, I have a little bit of respect in this town.”
“So when do I start?”
“How about next week?” André answered. “I’ll take you on a little tour, introduce you around.”
“Then I can start?”
“Then you can start,” André grinned. “You can use your bike or the bus at first and, if you do well enough, I’ll see what I can do about getting you a set of wheels.”
“That would be awesome.”
“Alright, big fella, don’t mess yourself,” André laughed. “Anyway, school’s out, where do you want me to drop you off ?”
Ned really wanted to go home, but he knew his mom would freak if she saw him come out of André’s truck. “Here’s good. I was going to go to Cameron’s anyway,” Ned said. “Which reminds me . . . could you spare a little cake of hash?”
André laughed and stopped the truck. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll do better than that,” he said. “Why don’t you take this package—but don’t open it up until you get into your buddy’s house.”
“Sure.”
“No, really, is that clear?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good, then get the hell out.”
Ned laughed and took the package. It was a sealed manila envelope with no markings. As Ned felt it, he was relieved that it was spongy and not lumpy. “Great,” he thought. “Weed, not hash.”
As soon as Ned shut the door, André sped off. Ned, happy, began to walk home when a patrol car pulled up to the curb, then stopped. Two cops emerged from the car and approached him.
One of the cops was a fat bastard who needed a shave. The other wasn’t much older than Ned himself.
“Did you just exit that vehicle, sir?” the fat one asked.
“What vehicle?”
“Oh, okay, smart guy,” the fat one continued. “Do you mind if we take a look at that envelope you have in your hand?”
“Yes, yes I do,” Ned stammered.
“Thank you, sir,” the younger one said as he pried the envelope from Ned’s hand. “Most people we stop are not quite as helpful as you.”
“Asshole,” Ned mumbled under his breath. The fat cop backhanded him across the jaw. Ned tried his best to pretend it didn’t happen, but he could taste blood in his mouth and instinctively checked his teeth with his tongue to see if any were loose.
The young cop turned the envelope over in his hands, as if trying to find clues from the outside.
“Just open the damn thing,” the fat cop scolded.
Ned sank.
A puzzled look crossed the cop’s face. He pulled out a fistful of shredded paper.
Ned couldn’t help but smirk.
“Oh, yeah? Oh yeah, tough guy, you think you’re something?” the fat one shouted just before he gave Ned a whack in the ribs with his baton. “Not so fuckin’ smart now, are you punk?”
Ned collapsed and curled up with the pain. The cops laughed; the little one gave him a small, impotent kick. Ned tried to laugh at him, but it hurt too much.
The last time Steve Schultz was this excited, it was Christmas morning and he was five years old. He was bursting with the exact same kind of anticipation because he knew he was going to get his patch that night. It wasn’t just a matter of pride. Once he was a full-patch member of the Sons of Satan, he would be allowed much more autonomy in business, and he would no longer have to be at the beck and call of the guys who had rank on him.
The one notable exception was Ivan Mehelnechuk. Steve didn’t like the short and ugly little tyrant at all. Ever since Steve showed up, Mehelnechuk started pushing him around. He’d call him up, any time of the night or day and make him do something. From getting him a pizza to roughing up a debtor, there was no job too mundane for Steve to do. And he never paid him anything, never even said thanks.
But it was time for the annual meeting of the Sons of Satan and it was the Martinsville chapter’s turn to play host, so Steve knew he would have to keep playing ball for now. Steve had been a prospect for the club since last year’s meeting. Not that many prospects get promoted to full member after just one year, but Steve was confident he would be.
In that year, he had brought the club a lot of revenue. His two escort agencies—Heaven’s Angels Executive Escorts and AAAAA Budget Escorts—yielded a lot of untraceable cash and supplied dancers for local strip clubs. And he had done what many bikers had tried and failed at for years; he infiltrated Martinsville’s gay village, supplying cocaine, meth, ecstasy, and steroids to a small network of four competing bars.
But that didn’t seem to matter much to Mehelnechuk. The night before Shultz knew he was to get his patch, he got a text message from the boss, instructing him to help some fat middle-aged guy from out of town who was celebrating something and throwing some big bills around at the Wild Flower dance bar.
Steve had helped in more substantial ways in the short-lived and one-sided war between the Sons of Satan and the Lawbreakers in Martinsville. He had supplied his associates with C4 plastic explosives which he’d bought from a second cousin in the army. He had also helped dispose of the corpse of a Lawbreakers-associated drug dealer who’d been killed by a Sons of Satan-associated drug dealer after a beer-fueled softball game.
Steve knew the Sons of Satan were in desperate need of men like him. There had been many arrests lately. By the time the annual meeting came around, four of the most senior Martinsville Sons of Satan—including long-time national president James “Jimbo” Masterton—were in jail awaiting trial. With Masterton behind bars, the club needed a president. Two of the primary candidates came from Martinsville.
Marvin “Big Mamma” Bouchard and Ivan “the Flea” Mehelnechuk could not have been more different from one another. Bouchard was tall, strong, handsome, and charismatic. He was French-Canadian—from Maisonneuve-Hochelaga, the roughest neighborhood in Montreal—but spoke English with only a trace of an accent because he had been in the U.S. for almost thirty years. He had a reputation for getting things done his way, and that way almost always involved violence. He’d been arrested forty-three times in the last ten years, but through fancy lawyering and other circumstances, he had spent less than nine months in total behind bars.
Mehelnechuk, on the other hand, had only been in jail to visit his friends. He was small—no more than five-foot-five—and funny looking. He had been no pretty picture to start with, but when he was thirty, about the time he became a member of the Sons of Satan, he was shot in the face.
It was a freak accident. Mehelnechuk was instructing a pair of young associates on how to intimidate a witness. After he was done his demonstration, one of his pupils threw a handgun to the other. Excited, the kid accidentally squeezed the trigger. The bullet flew out of the barrel and hit Mehelnechuk in the top left canine tooth. The tooth shattered, but it stayed intact long enough to deflect the lead. It shot backwards, tearing the flesh of his face in such a way that it split it five inches back. Mehelnechuk’s cheek was slashed open from his mouth to his ear.
From that point forward, the right side of his face showed his real emotions while his left side displayed an insane grin—not unlike the Joker from Batman—no matter what the situation.
A few months earlier, nobody would have given Mehelnechuk a snowball’s chance to be president. Not only did Bouchard look more like the man in charge, he was well liked and widely respected. Mehelnechuk had many members’ respect, but it was a grudging respect, and few would call him a friend.
Things changed pretty quickly in his favor. Bouchard was arrested again, just two months before the meeting. A pair of Martinsville’s finest were tailing him when he forgot to signal a lane change. A quick flash of lights, a brief conversation, and a couple of frisks later, Bouchard and his lieutenant Mickey “Wino” Godel were behind bars for possession of unregistered handguns.
Though they were bailed out quickly, Bouchard came home to find a pair of men in cheap suits sitting on his porch. They were from immigration. Bouchard had lived in the United States since he was nine, but he’d never bothered to file for citizenship. Because he had never attended college, gotten a job, filed a tax return, or crossed the border, he had fallen through the cracks—until now, as the annual meeting drew near.
With Bouchard fallen on hard times, his old buddy Mehelnechuk came to the rescue. Not only was he the one that came up with the bail money—he also let it be known that he would find a way to get Bouchard a Green Card. Bouchard, grateful, had no objection to Mehelnechuk’s plan to host the annual meeting.
It was an elaborate affair. Mehelnechuk was originally from Springfield and still owned a bar there, even though it was a Lawbreakers’ town and the Sons of Satan didn’t hold much sway there. Well, he didn’t actually own the bar—it was registered under the names of two old friends with legit businesses—but everyone in town whose job it was to enforce or break laws knew it was his.
Johnny Reb’s was a Confederate-themed bar in a northern town. On weekends, it drew huge crowds. Many came to dance to the live country or rock acts—usually cover bands. Mehelnechuk had a fondness for the music of his youth—but far more came to blow off steam or get shitfaced. And a few came to make deals in Mehelnechuk’s b
ack-room office. He didn’t have a huge amount of business in Springfield—the Lawbreakers saw to that—but it was worthwhile. Besides, he came home pretty well every weekend to escort his elderly mother to the Eastern Orthodox church where they attended mass in Ukrainian.
When he let it be known that this year’s annual meeting would be held at Johnny Reb’s, many members were surprised that Mehelnechuk would risk having it in what most considered to be enemy territory. But, as the idea circulated, more and more members realized what a powerful statement it was. There were maybe two dozen Lawbreakers in Springfield. At the annual meeting, Mehelnechuk could muster several hundred Sons of Satan and associates. He could have more firepower on the door than the Springfield Lawbreakers could put together in the whole town.
And it was a hell of a party. Bikers and their associates were greeted at the door by bikini-clad hostesses—most of them hired from Steve Schultz’s dancer and escort agencies—who offered them drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Buddy Boy and the BJs—a country-punk outfit who flirted with national fame until Buddy Boy’s alcohol and cocaine problems derailed them—played all their well-known songs and a few old covers Mehelnechuk had specified.
The bikers, the drug dealers, the enforcers, their wives, girlfriends, and other hangers-on were having a great time when Mehelnechuk made his entrance. Two burly, leather-clad bikers flung open the front doors. Buddy Boy and the BJs fell silent, as they had been instructed earlier. Immediately, the stage lights lit up the door and Richard Strauss’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” boomed through the speakers.
In strode Mehelnechuk—all five-foot-five of him. Despite his odd appearance and his scarred face, he had something of a regal bearing that night. He wore a floor-length wolf- fur coat, a white silk shirt unbuttoned enough to show his many gold chains, soft leather pants, and ostrich-skin cowboy boots. It wasn’t subtle, but it was a profound show of wealth and success to a very impressionable crowd.
As he entered, an assistant took his coat and the music stopped. He announced: “I trust everyone is having a good time.” The crowd roared its approval. “Well then, let’s make this a party.” He clapped his hands twice, and all of the hostesses removed their bikini tops and let them drop to the floor. The crowd went wild and Buddy Boy and the BJs cranked up a powerful version of ZZ Top’s “Sharp-Dressed Man.”
Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle Page 5
