by M. Matheson
to return. His mind was about to change, thought Troy.
The local Police and Sheriff’s agencies feigned sympathy, asked lots of questions, and took a truckload of notes, but refrained from telling the couple that if Aaron were younger or female, he would have gained more of their attention. It had been a week since Aaron left, and still not a ripple. The Hilles were out of options.
Troy shook his head looking more hurt than angry as he asked Aidan again, “Why didn’t you call me sooner?” Aidan nervously shuffled his feet, like a kid in front of his father.
He’d thought of it alright. And Margie had told him to. But, at the time he was pissed, and if he came to Troy like that…
Well, it could have turned real nasty. Real Quick.
FOUR
When Troy was active with the club, violent altercations on a daily basis were the norm. Adrenaline levels were sky high, and a trail of broken bodies and tombstones were left scattered in his wake. In this world, violence was not dishonorable, but part of an unconventional moral code. A code that had slowly seeped out of America since the pioneers of the Wild West.
Bloodshed was never needless, and pointless brutality was an offense to be punished – by the Enforcer.
Troy had never given a second thought to doing anything else with his life until decades later when his body, after numerous gunshot and knife wounds, began to give out on him. Once the outlandish idea of living in peace entered his head, it became a relentless bee buzzing in his ear.
Fast forward to today and Troy lived in the house where he’d grown up, alone these days except for his Bulldog Sam. He hated to think that he’d become housebroken and as docile as the dog. But, that was the ugly truth. Troy had become tame, and he hated the thought. The peace he’d imagined turned out to be highly overrated. He'd sold himself down the river.
Up until his retirement several years ago, he never once imagined himself as a writer but on a whim and out of boredom, he began sending stories to Easyriders Magazine. They liked them and told him to send more. From a warehouse full of real-life stories, he weaved fast-paced tales teeming with blood, bullets, and splattered brains. Those stories grew into a series of books, the Gunning for Life series. On book number six, they showed enough success to pay for groceries, dog food, gas, and the occasional box of ammo, but not much else.
Outside of watching monitoring his book sales, or returning the occasional bail jumper, one day fell just about like the next. Not quite the way he’d pictured it. Those first few months after he’d retired had been full of parties and friends, but by the end of the first year, he'd found himself alone.
In daydreams, he often wished he'd chosen door number two and gone out in a hail of gunfire or with a knife twisting in his ribs. But, Red Dog was too good for his own demise, and everyone knew it; he’d be ninety before anyone ever got over on him. It wasn't physical fitness or even skill, it was the extraordinary level of brutality and ruthlessness that ran in his veins. Those were his trademarks. No matter how broken and frail he grew, he would always be good at killing and carnage.
As the days ticked off, the weight in his heart grew. He had no conscious about most anyone he had killed or maimed, no one that deserved it anyways. There was one regret that sat on his chest like a hungry elephant, though. No one knew about it but the young boy he had killed, and God. The parent was dead and deserved it. Authorities assumed the boy kidnapped, his small body had never surfaced in the abandoned quarry where Troy disposed of him.
Troy was the Hilles de facto son; casual dinners and holidays together were the ordinary course of things.
Of course, he would find Aaron. That should be the easy part.
And, yes, he would put some scare into the boy.
His own little scared straight program like his father had been a part of when he was in prison. Scared Straight was a now obsolete program begun by well-meaning authorities to bring borderline kids, teenagers, that had not entirely flipped into a life of crime and violence, to the prison for a little powwow with some scary inmates. The convicts would rough them up and give them a taste of what prison life really was like. The idea was to frighten the youngsters out of their infatuation with a life of crime. The program had a 50-50 success rate.
He'd recovered other runaways before just not so close to home.
Troy knew Aaron, a big lug with a good heart. He’d give him a good scare and return him to his grandparents. He pegged his chance of success at about ninety-percent
FIVE
Troy phoned Digger, the Enforcer for the Los Angeles Chapter of the Breakers to ask for assistance. Digger had in mind two brothers who specialized in that sort of thing. They were not very gentle, though. Troy said that would be okay as long as they didn’t kill the boy.
“Troy. Listen to me. It’s Sam and Beadie…. Once I sic them on him, no power on earth could call them back. So you better be sure.”
“I am. Just tell them to treat him like family.”
Troy heard the sniff of laughter and pictured Digger’s sinister grin at the other end. “You sure about that?” Digger asked. “The third brother still walks with a limp.” They both laughed.
“Just remember. Don’t kill him,” Troy warned stiffly. “I’m emailing you the boy’s computer history and cell phone number. Get Hackman to look at them. I’m sure he can put together a trail.” Troy was feeling like his old self, back in the game.
Beadie and Sam were born a year apart to the day. They looked like giant bags of rocks sewn together by Doctor Frankenstein. The thought of their parents conceiving those bastards made Troy’s stomach sour.
The younger and smaller one, Sam, weighed in at just over three-hundred pounds. Over the years, a few men had mistaken him for fat and slow. For some, that was their last thought on earth; for the survivors, it was the last thing they’d attempted while still in one ambulatory piece.
Beadie made Sam look like a cute puppy.
It only took them eight hours to find Aaron and detain him. His friends quickly fed him to the monsters, so to speak. One of Aaron’s new buddies squeaked a weak defense, and Beadie rearranged his nose.
“That looks like it’ll require surgery.” The young man’s head looked like a grapefruit in the biker's hand as he rocked it back and forth like the school nurse giving it a look-see. Sam laughed hysterically as he hog-tied Aaron.
“I know a good doctor if you want one,” Beadie was pissed at the broken-face boy and about to stomp him. Sam talked him out of killing the boy for getting makeup on his fist.
Troy met the brothers in the parking lot of the Rock House on Malibu Canyon Drive. On any slow night, at least, a lucky thirteen Harleys would be parked up close to the rough wooden plank door. Tonight, thirty bikes, three pickups and a few Cadillac’s were haphazardly strewn across the gravel lot.
Troy turned his navy blue ‘69 Eldorado into the lot and positioned it behind the Brother's Lincoln. Muffled squeals, thumps, and rattles issued from under the trunk lid.
A tattooed bicep the size of a Christmas ham hung from the driver’s window of the blood red Suicide Door Lincoln. Sam beat his fist on the door. “I told you to shut up boy! Would you like me to come out there and tan your little punk hide?” The noise stopped.
He’s still got some fight, thought Troy. Impressive.
As Sam stepped out, the car tilted and seemed to sigh with relief. Beadie came around from the passenger side. Sam, jangling his ring of keys looked like a medieval dungeon master. The trunk lid popped.
Aaron's bulging pink eyes darted from one gargantuan brother to the next like a trapped animal expecting to die. Duct tape covered his mouth, and his hands and legs were tied together behind his back.
Beadie grabbed the bundle like a sack of groceries, lifted the teenager with one arm and pumped off two arm curls. "Where do you want it, Boss?"
Troy stood back in the shadows and nodded towards the Cadillac’s open trunk. He dropped the bundle and all three winced as air whooshed from Aaron's lungs as
he hit the bottom of the deep-welled trunk. Troy clicked the lid shut and brushed imaginary dust from his hands.
They hugged, high-fived and agreed how good it was to see each other again.
Aaron heard the crunch of heavy boots fade as his captors headed into the bar.
After two hours spent watching the brothers drink beer and down countless shots of Wild Turkey, Troy offered his thanks and slipped away. Sam and Beadie were distracted with a couple of pretty young girls and hardly noticed Troy was gone.
Aaron's tattered mind had rested while his captors were in the tavern, but the approaching sound of boots in the gravel lot sent his thoughts darting about like moths at a light bulb. He’d heard about sex trafficking of young boys and girls for snuff films and worse. To him, that was the only plausible reason these animals would have grabbed him. He wondered how much the brothers had sold him for.
The driver’s door screeched and popped, and the car leaned as Troy got in. The starter ground and the 500 cubic inch engine growled to life. The driver gunned the motor and they moved from the gravel lot onto an asphalt highway. The end of his life was near, Aaron knew it couldn’t get any worse. He heard the radio flip through AM stations. When it finally lighted on one, the driver muttered something unintelligible.
Christ, Aaron thought.
It's the hum of wheels on a blacktop
The strum of strings on a flat top
It'll take you, break
