Carter kept shooting. He tried to miss Maura, but knew he couldn’t. He didn’t have any reason to hurt her, but he had a job to do. He pumped three shells into the pair of them. He killed the full-patch High Roller. Maura lay on top of the corpse screaming in pain from the pellets in her face and thigh.
After the kills, Carter went to Steve’s office. “There is a war here in Springfield and I have done my part: I have killed eleven people, and the rest of you have killed none.”
“That ’s true,” said Steve. “But this is a Martinsville war, not a Springfield war, and you were sent here by Bouchard or Rose or one of them—we didn’t even want you here—so if you want something, you should get it from them.”
Carter laughed. “Nope, I am cleaning up Springfield and you are the boss of Springfield. You know it, I know it,” he said. “The Martinsville boys pay me, but now you must pay me, or I will go home.”
“Okay, okay, okay, I will admit that having you here has been good for business,” Steve grinned. “But I’m kinda short on cash right now, can I pay you in product?”
“By product, you mean . . .”
“You know, meth . . . coke . . .”
“I thought Ivan said those things were illegal.”
“Ivan’s in Martinsville, I’m the boss here.”
As they drove to Webster’s Falls, Feeney could tell Ronnie was excited. This fat, failed cop would do just about anything to be a real outlaw. And if Feeney could get him hangaround status, maybe he’d get the idea he could become a prospect or even a member. If he had that kind of status to protect, maybe he’d keep his mouth shut. Otherwise, things could get difficult. Ronnie, Feeney realized, was in love with him—or at least as close to love as someone like Ronnie could be. If Feeney tried to get rid of him, things could get ugly. A petulant, immature man even by biker standards, Ronnie was likely to break Feeney’s secret even if it cost him his own pointless life. Feeney’s plan, then, was to provide Ronnie a point in life—which would allow him to move on voluntarily.
Feeney stopped the car about a block from the Webster’s Falls clubhouse, opened the trunk and took out his colors. Sons of Satan rarely wear their colors on trips because it attracts cops as well as other bikers. But Feeney didn’t know any of the guys inside the clubhouse and thought the safest thing to do was to let them know right away who and what he was.
It was a sad little clubhouse. A former dry cleaning store, the Sons had put metal curtains over the windows, and never pulled them up. There was an eight-foot fence topped with barbed wire no more than four feet from the façade. The door, metal and windowless, was painted black with the letters “S.O.S.M.C.W.F.” at eye level. The single video camera mounted above the front door looked like it wasn’t working. And Feeney had to park on the street.
He hit the buzzer and sensed Ronnie pacing nervously behind him. The door opened, and a young man welcomed him in. Inside, the clubouse was cramped. There was the usual graffiti, old furniture, and beer fridges, but it looked like a truckload of stuff in a trunk’s worth of room. The three prospects inside seemed oblivious to their claustrophobic surroundings and were sipping beer and lying on the furniture. When they saw Feeney in his colors, they jumped to their feet, as though an officer had just entered their barracks. Feeney grinned. Ronnie beamed.
“Fallen on a bit of hard times, I see,” Feeney said.
“Yeah, there was this whore . . .” one of them began.
“I know the story,” Feeney interrupted. “I’m here to do a job—where can I find McAfee?’
“Murphy, get this man a beer, one for his friend too,” said the biker who had let them in. “He’s operating out of the Sta-A-Nite, just outside of town on Route 6.”
“Is he alone?”
“He parties—gets real drunk, occasionally brings back a whore.”
“Not playing it real safe, is he?” Feeney said. The locals laughed. “Well, if you guys were any kind of threat, maybe he would.” They stopped laughing.
Feeney took a couple of handguns from his hosts and left. He took Ronnie to dinner and checked into another motel, just down the road from the Sta-A-Nite. They watched TV and drank beer until midnight. Then they went to the car and waited.
About two hours later, they were awakened by the rumbling of a Harley. A big man in a leather jacket got off the bike. He had a woman with him. She stumbled when she got off the bike; they both laughed.
Feeney handed Ronnie a gun. “You gotta do this.” Feeney had decided that if Ronnie had committed a murder, he would have something to hold over him in case he ever decided he wanted to talk to anyone about their relationship. Ronnie, however, mistook the gesture as a gift. He thought Feeney was allowing him to be the triggerman so that he could prove himself worthy, perhaps even worthy enough to become a Son of Satan.
Eager to show Feeney that he’d made the right decision, Ronnie grabbed the gun and swung the door open. He turned back, told Feeney he loved him, and leapt out the door.
The girl saw Ronnie first and screamed. She ducked and ran as Ronnie’s first shot hit McAfee in the leg. The next bullet took out his left elbow. Screaming in pain, McAfee took four more bullets before he went silent.
“Jesus, Ronnie,” Feeney shouted after Ronnie had gotten back in the car. “Throw the fuckin’ gun away!”
“I can’t; the cops have my prints on file!”
Ronnie took off his jacket and wiped the gun down. Feeney had already started driving out of the Sta-A-Nite’s parking lot, so Ronnie threw the gun into a roadside ditch full of leaves.
“Is he dead?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“I emptied the gun into him.”
“What about the whore?”
“I don’t know. I guess she ran.”
“You guess? You guess? Man, this is some fucked up.”
“It was my first time.”
Bouchard and a prospect named Harris were driving with their girlfriends from Martinsville to Bouchard’s country home in St. Pierre. He’d bought it originally for skiing, but soon realized he liked it just as much in the summer. The four of them were back on the road after stopping for lunch when a state trooper lit up and sounded his siren behind them.
After they stopped, Bouchard handed his license, insurance card, and registration through the window, and asked, “What’s the problem, officer?”
The cop was polite, but gave Bouchard no information. Bouchard shrugged to his passengers as the young cop went back to his car with the documents. Within about ten minutes, three Martinsville police cars showed up at the scene. The cops conferred with the state trooper for a few moments. Then two of them pulled their guns and aimed them at Bouchard’s car. Another two cops walked over to the car. One of them asked Bouchard to step out. As he did, the other cop instructed him to put his hands behind his head and frisked him.
The first cop said: “Mr. Marvin Bouchard, you are under arrest for felony, sexual assault . . .”
“This is bullshit.”
“. . . you have the right to remain silent . . .”
“I know my fuckin’ rights.”
The cop read them anyway.
The cops also took in Harris, who had an unregistered handgun. Neither of the two girls had a valid driver’s license, so the cops called a tow truck and gave the girls the number of a taxi company that serviced the area.
Back in Martinsville, Feeney and Ronnie were having a few beers before going to meet Rose. They were feeling pretty loose, not just because the newspapers had reported McAfee as dead, but because, with Bouchard in jail, they wouldn’t have to deal with the man himself. Instead, they would get paid by Rose; who was far less prone to ask questions. And, because the weapon hadn’t yet been found, the cops and media were speculating that the hit was not a professional job.
Soon after they sat down, they were greeted by a couple of prospects Feeney knew only as Boner and Bad News who came to sit with them. After a few pleasantries and another roun
d of beer, Boner asked Feeney what he’d been up to.
Ronnie interjected before Feeney could speak. “We just got back from Webster’s Falls,” he said excitedly. “We’re the guys who offed McAfee!”
Boner glared at Feeney. Feeney shouted: “Yeah, we totally killed McAfee in softball,” he said. “Our company team beat theirs twenty-three to two.”
Ronnie was oblivious. “No, no, no. I shot him, I shot him in the motel parking lot,” he continued animatedly. “His head exploded like a melon—pow!”
Boner and Bad News got up and left without a word.
Feeney stood Ronnie up and took him to the men’s room. He made sure nobody was in either of the stalls and then held the door shut. He spoke quietly. “You fucking idiot, you just confessed to a murder in a public place, a place the cops know we hang out at and could have been bugged—anyone could have heard you.”
“I didn’t know . . .”
“And worst of all, you implicated me.”
“I didn’t know . . .”
“If the wrong person heard you, you could get twenty-five years for not knowing, and I would get almost as much.”
“I’m sorry,” Ronnie said as he exploded into tears and started to hug Feeney.
Feeney patted him on the back and told him everything would be okay, because there was no way the owner would let the cops bug the place, and the other people in the bar were not the kind to go report things to the police. “Half of them probably got outstanding warrants of their own.”
Feeney stood there, one hand holding Ronnie as he blubbered and the other still holding the door shut. And as he did, he came to a conclusion—there’s only one cure for stupid, and it ’s a bullet in the head.
Clegg couldn’t believe his luck. A couple of uniforms brought in a guy for tearing up his girlfriend’s apartment, and he just happened to have a big bag of meth on him. Even better, the skel was Eddie Aarhus, whom Clegg happened to know had some association with the Death Dealers.
He actually caught himself whistling a happy tune on the way to the interrogation room. “Hey, Eddie,” he said as he got into the chair across from the prisoner. “I knew I’d see you again, just not this soon. Stupid move on your part.”
“I ain’t telling you shit.”
“Oh, c’mon, Ed, neither of us believes that’s true,” Clegg said. “You’ve already ratted twice on your pals to stay outta jail. Why not make it an even three?”
Aarhus couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s different this time.”
“Really? Because I have enough here to pretty much guarantee eight years.”
“It’s different.”
“I know why it’s different—because you’re moving product for the Death Dealers now; the Lawbreakers found out it was you who sent Alfredsson to prison, and you’re running out of options . . .”
“No.”
“. . . and the Death Dealers are a more violent bunch anyway. You think that if they found out you were a rat, you wouldn’t just be out of business—you’d be dead.”
Eddie just sighed.
“It ’s okay, Ed. You’re right—they would kill you if they found out . . .”
Ed looked at Clegg. A tear welled up in his right eye.
“. . . so you don’t have to tell me who your dealer is.”
Ed smiled.
“You’re gonna have to face B and E and willful destruction charges for your girlfriend’s place, but I’ll forget about the meth if you do me a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“I have a friend who’s a reporter. You tell her what I want you to tell her and I’ll forget I ever saw any meth.”
“Will she use my name?”
“Nope. And your B and E charge will keep your friends from thinking you talked to get off.”
“Okay then.”
Clegg left to call Lara, then returned to the interrogation room to coach Aarhus on what to say. By the time she arrived, he was pretty comfortable. After a few preliminary questions that indicated he was a local drug dealer with close ties to the Death Dealers, Lara asked him about the war.
“Yeah, there’s a war going on, everybody knows it, but nobody wants to talk about it. The Lawbreakers and the Death Dealers—who everybody knows are run by the Sons of Satan—are fighting it out on the streets of not just Springfield, but a bunch of cities for the right to sell drugs on the street.”
“Who’s winning?”
“It was the Lawbreakers for a long time, but now it’s the Death Dealers.”
“Is that because of the recent assassinations?”
“Yeah.”
“And the Death Dealers are behind them?”
“Yeah, you might not believe me, but all the murders were done by one man—a professional assassin the Death Dealers brought in from Martinsville.”
“Will you tell me his name?”
“I can’t.”
“When will the war stop?”
“When the Death Dealers run the town.”
“Then what happens? The assassin gets sent to another town?”
“No, they plan to kill him.”
“What?”
“After he’s done in Springfield, they’re gonna kill him because he’s getting too wild, won’t follow orders anymore. He’s just too dangerous, even for them.”
“How do you know all this?”
Aarhus looked at Clegg, who nodded.
“I’m done. I got nothing more to say.”
Acting under Clegg’s orders, a uniform took Aarhus back to his cell. Clegg grinned at Lara. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
She beamed.
Feeney had actually killed a guy before. His brother was a bouncer at Hurlihy’s before Steve took it over, and he had to kick this one drunken tough guy out because he was grabbing all the dancers. The guy came back a half hour later with a shotgun. Feeney jumped him before he could get to his brother and the two of them beat him up. The guy later died in hospital from loss of blood. After some aggressive plea bargaining, Feeney’s brother, Mikey, got three years and Feeney himself got eighteen months.
But this was totally different. Feeney had to go out with the intention of killing a man. A man whom, only days ago, he had considered his boyfriend. He didn’t have time for sentiment. Besides, he could find another Ronnie in half an hour. He packed a gun and headed for the motel where Ronnie worked nights. The plan was to walk in when he saw Ronnie alone, shoot him in the head, and then grab some valuable stuff to make it look like a robbery. Easy in, easy out.
He brought two guns. A shotgun and a handgun. He drove to the motel but parked across the road. He planned to wait until he could tell there were no customers in the lobby, for when Ronnie was alone.
He sat in his car for about twenty minutes. But there was one old woman who sat in the couch opposite Ronnie’s desk and talked and talked with him. Feeney wondered if he could get away with murdering Ronnie in front of her or if he would have to kill her too.
He was pondering that decision when he was awoken from his thoughts by sirens. Within seconds of each other, three cop cars showed up, sirens blaring. The cops got out, guns drawn, and hustled into the motel’s office. A few minutes later, they emerged with Ronnie. His hands were cuffed behind his head, but he was smiling and chatting with the cops. Feeney didn’t want to wait around; he drove away—quietly, obeying all street signs and speed limits—and went home.
Ned didn’t want to go to Steve’s, but he didn’t have a choice. When the big man calls, you go. Steve wouldn’t tell him why he wanted him, but he made sure Ned knew it was mandatory.
When he showed up at the mansion, Ned was surprised to see a bunch of cars there. Something was going on. But it wasn’t something gangster, because most of the cars were pretty shitty. It was all Mazda 3s, Honda Civics, and stuff like that, not the usual Cadillacs, Lexuses, and big SUVs.
Once inside, he could tell what was going on. There were lights and wires everywhere. People were walking around
with coffee and walkietalkies. Steve was making one of his movies. Because the house was so large, it took a while to find him. Finally, he asked one of the guys who was milling about, and he told him Steve was in the ‘Green Room.’ When Ned looked at him, confused, the guy pointed.
Ned opened the door and saw Steve and a thin, curly haired woman sitting in what appeared to be matching barber chairs. They were both wearing white bathrobes. The room was full of lights and mirrors. An effeminate young man was spraying the woman’s hair, while a small, older woman was applying makeup to Steve’s face. His eyes were closed.
Ned cleared his throat. Steve opened his eyes and grinned broadly. “Crash Aiken!” He said. “So glad you could come.”
“You called me down.”
Steve dismissed the other people in the room. “Isn’t this exciting?” he said. “Bet you’ve never been on a movie set before.”
“No, no, you got me there.”
“Let me show you around.”
“Maybe we should get business out of the way first.”
Steve’s face dropped. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. How are things going in Hamner?”
“Great—making lots of money, no problems with the police.”
“Yeah, what about the Bandit?”
“Well, I’d like to tell you he’s helping, but it’d be more accurate to say he’s not hurting us that much.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he doesn’t do any work—other than act as something of a deterrent to any wannabe tough guys because he’s so big and ugly—and he steals beer and harasses the dancers, but mostly he just hangs around all day.”
“Acting funny at all?”
Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle Page 19
