Goose

by Hildreth, Scott

  He stared. Apparently, he wasn’t used to having a woman stand up to him. Satisfied, I turned around.

  “What the fuck does that mean?” he asked.

  I didn’t respond.

  If he didn’t apologize, he’d simply find out.

  33

  Goose

  We were passed by one CHP officer on the freeway. He didn’t so much as give us a second look. Immediately after we took the exit to go to the clubhouse, a San Diego police officer pulled alongside us at a traffic light. Upon seeing him, my butthole cinched tight.

  Much to everyone’s surprise, Ally rolled down the window and flashed him a smile. When the light turned green, he waved playfully before speeding away.

  If the tension between Cash and Ally could be eliminated, I’d label the job—and our new group— a one hundred percent success.

  In the planning meeting, Ally’s ideas—and her ability to express them—made me proud. Her later recommendation to hit a bank in a wealthy suburb was obviously spot-on. When she opened the bank’s vault, the pride I felt for her grew.

  I realized from years of experience that performing a simple task under duress wasn’t an easy thing to do. Manipulating the lock of a bank’s vault while working against the clock—and in the dark—was impressive.

  Nothing, however, would ever make me prouder than seeing her stand up for herself against Cash.

  We made it to the shop without incident. After dumping our bags onto the dining room table, we separated the money into stacks based on the demonization of the bills.

  As we worked in awkward silence, Baker walked into the room and paused. With his hands on his hips, he looked at each of us. I made the mistake of locking eyes with him.

  “Want to tell me what the fuck’s going on?” he asked.

  I broke his gaze and looked away. “Job went slick, Boss.”

  He shifted his eyes to Ally. “Any particular reason the getaway vehicle didn’t get away? You sat in the fucking parking lot for five goddamned minutes before you left. Longest five fucking minutes of my entire life, I might add. I wasn’t sure what the fuck to do. We didn’t discuss stall tactics. I didn’t know if I was supposed to lead, follow, or sit there with my thumb in my ass.”

  Everyone except for Ally looked at Cash.

  “The ECM had to update,” she said. “It’s unfortunate, but it happens.”

  I had no fucking idea what she just said, but I knew what she was doing. She was keeping Cash out of trouble. I tried to remain straight-faced, not wanting to give Baker the hint that she was lying through her teeth.

  “What?” Baker snapped. “Update?”

  “ECM,” she said matter-of-factly. “The Engine Control Module. BMW issues updates once a year or so for the air-fuel and smog control management systems. They typically self-load at night. They just happened to be loading when we were trying to go.”

  “Sounds like we need a new getaway car,” Baker said. “We sure as fuck can’t have that kind of shit happening in the middle of the job.”

  Tito cleared his throat. “I’ll disable the automatic updates on it. I should have done it a long time ago, but I hadn’t really thought about it until we were sitting there. I felt like a fool. I’ll do it in the morning.”

  “You’ll do it before you go home,” Baker insisted.

  Tito gave a nod. “Will do, Boss.”

  Reno glared at Cash.

  Cash glared back for a moment, and then glanced at Ally. While she sorted money, he gave her a quick once-over.

  Baker sauntered in our direction. “Other than the automatic fucking update, I’m guessing it went well?”

  “Really well.” I gestured to the piles of bills. “Look at this shit.”

  Baker picked up a stack of hundreds, smelled them, and then tossed them onto the table. “Love the smell of success. You all did a good job.”

  “Damned good idea to hit a bank in the ‘burbs,” Reno said. “She knows her shit, Boss.”

  “Agreed.” Baker patted Ally on the shoulder. “No problems with the vault?”

  She shook her head. “No, Sir.”

  I admired Ally’s decision not to throw Cash under the bus. I expected everyone—short of Cash—agreed. It validated her willingness to work with others, ability to be supportive of the entire team, and her respect for authority.

  Concealing Cash’s bad decisions and shortcomings suggested her level of respect for each of us, and especially for Baker. I sorted the stacks of bills wondering just what she planned if Cash didn’t apologize. She wasn’t one to make as bold of a statement as she made without a plan.

  Reno looked at me, winked, and then got Baker’s attention. “Listen to this.”

  Baker’s brows raised. “I’m listening.”

  “We get off the freeway and roll up to a light. Fucker goes yellow to red in an instant. Ally does a short stop instead of blowing through it. Ends up two feet past the little white line. Fucking city cop rolls up beside us. Cocksucker starts eye-fucking us, like, ‘what the fuck are you clowns doing?’ Then, he gets that look on his face, like, ‘As soon as this motherfucker turns green, I’m going to pull your asses over.’ Ally realizes this fucker’s on the verge of being a dick. So, what does she do? Rolls down her fucking window, flashes her SDSU cheerleader outfit, and blows that prick a kiss.”

  Baker looked at Ally and shook his head.

  She grinned and shrugged her shoulders. “A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do.”

  “The light on Rosecrans?” Baker asked.

  Reno nodded. “Yep.”

  “I hate that fucking light. So, what did the cop do?”

  Reno chuckled. “Fucking light goes green, and he waves back at her. Then, the fucker hauls ass.”

  “Like I said. Good work.” Baker surveyed the table’s contents and smiled. “Any ideas on an amount?”

  “Somewhere north of seven hundred grand,” Tito said.

  Baker whistled. “Jesus.”

  It seemed everyone was jumping on the “I like Ally” train, except for Cash. Knowing that sooner or later things would come to a head, I sorted the bills with some reluctance—hoping Cash would pull his head out of his ass before our work ended.

  Despite my lack of effort, we eventually finished sorting. After counting and re-counting the money, Baker entered it in the books.

  “Seven hundred and eighty grand is a damned nice bank job,” he said.

  “Agreed,” I said.

  Tito patted Ally on the shoulder. “Good job on that vault.”

  “Thank you.”

  Reno followed with a congratulatory remark regarding her quick thinking when it came to the cop. We all shared a laugh about him thinking a college cheerleader was flirting with him. When the laughing and storytelling ended, it was three thirty in the morning.

  Exhausted, Baker resigned to his upstairs loft.

  The rest of us meandered to the elevator as a group.

  In its normal snails-like pace, the elevator descended to the basement. Not one word was spoken. After the doors opened, Cash stepped out and turned around.

  “I appreciate you not telling Baker what happened,” he said, directing his comment to Ally. “And, I’ll apologize for what I said back at the bank. But I don’t have to respect you.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Respect’s earned, and you haven’t done shit to earn it. That’s just how shit works with me.”

  “I’m fine with that,” she said. “Now, apologize.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I just did.”

  “No. You didn’t,” she insisted. “You said, ‘I’ll apologize for what I said back at the bank.’ So, apologize. After you do, I’ll consider this squashed.”

  He looked at each of us and then at Ally. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “As serious as a dose of dick cancer,” she deadpanned.

  After digesting her response, he forced a sigh. “I’m sorry for calling you a bitch.”

  “Apology accepted.” She spread
her arms open wide. “Gimme a hug.”

  With reluctance, Cash hugged her.

  He broke the embrace and stomped to his bike, obviously mad about the entire situation. After bidding farewell to Reno and Tito, Ally and I walked to the SUV.

  I reached for the door handle and paused before opening it. “You took his wallet, didn’t you?”

  She peered over the hood. “Sure did.”

  Ally planned everything she did. She didn’t take Cash’s wallet out of spite, or for bragging rights. There was a reason behind it.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Her mouth twisted into a smirk. “You’ll see.”

  34

  Ally

  A week had passed since our bank job, and the situation with Cash hadn’t changed. I’d given him his wallet back, claiming that he’d dropped it in the back seat of the SUV. I didn’t expect the gesture to change anything, but I hoped my continued existence would prompt him to slowly begin treating me with respect.

  I wasn’t so lucky. Nothing had changed yet, anyway. Although I tried not to express my frustrations around the other men, Goose knew how I felt. Talking about it in bed on a Sunday morning would ensure I could make it through another week without doing or saying anything I’d later regret.

  I rolled to my side. “There’s a difference between respecting someone and treating someone with respect. A person doesn’t have to respect me to treat me respectfully. My problem with Cash is that he does neither. I’ll earn his respect, one of these days. Until then, I wish he’d stop being a dick.”

  “I understand the respect thing,” Goose said. “Believe me. I can like someone and not respect them. Hell, I could be friends with them, for that matter, and still not respect them. But I’ll always treat them with respect.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I try to treat everyone respectfully. It’s how I was raised. If someone gives you reason not to respect them, it still doesn’t mean you’re disrespectful toward them. You just walk away. They’re not worthy of your time.”

  He grinned a guilty grin. “Thank you.”

  “What was that weird smile about?”

  “You and I are more alike than I thought we were,” he said. “My parents did something shitty and disrespectful. After that, I couldn’t find a way to respect them. I walked away, and never looked back.”

  He’d mentioned the day we met that he left home at eighteen and hadn’t talked to his parents since.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

  “Not really,” he said. “It’s not that big of a deal, though.”

  “Obviously it is.”

  “No. I mean I’m not still torn up about it. It happened. It’s over. I’ve moved on. I’ve forgiven them. But I’ll never forget what they did.”

  “Do you want to tell me what it was?”

  He fluffed his pillow and plopped his head down on it. He gazed at the ceiling. After a moment of silence, he began.

  “Ghost’s grandfather died when he was two or three. He didn’t have a dad, so his grandmother and mom were his parents. They all lived together. His mom was always playing the good cop role, and his grandmother was more of the bad cop. She was strict on him, but he respected her for it. You know when you’re a kid and you hate authority?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  He looked at me. “It wasn’t that way with them. They were both cool. Much better than my parents, that’s for sure. His grandmother baked cookies all the time, and that’d get us over there after school. Half the time we’d all eat dinner there. Five of us. Right before our freshmen year, his grandmother died. Breast cancer. It crushed all of us. She wasn’t just his grandmother, she was our grandmother.”

  “That’s sad that she died,” I said. “But it’s sweet you all looked at her that way.”

  He nodded and then shifted his gaze to the ceiling. “Well, we made it to our senior year, and his mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. They said it wasn’t that bad, but halfway through our senior year, she died.”

  “Oh my gosh,” I gasped. “He didn’t tell me that.”

  “He didn’t like talking about it,” he said. “None of us did. We all came from pretty fucked up homes, and not all of us had parents. Good parents, anyway. She was the closest thing to a mother some of us had.”

  “That’s so sad. For all of you.”

  “So, the funeral.” He let out a sigh. “Cash’s mom went. Tito’s mom went. Baker’s aunt went. Out of respect, of course. My parents said they were coming. The night before the funeral, I’d stayed all night with Ghost. It wasn’t an easy time for him, you know. So, the next day, we went to the funeral. My parents didn’t show. Afterward, I had Ghost drive me by the tavern. They were in there, drunker than a couple of fuckin’ monkeys. They got sloshed instead of paying their respects to a woman we all loved and respected. That was the last straw for me. It was disrespectful, and embarrassing. I decided that was the last time they were going to make me feel like shit, and it was.”

  I knew a little about the poor decisions that drunks made. It was time I tell Goose a little more about my father.

  “I never reached that point with my father,” I said. “Where I gave up, that is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  It was my turn to stare at the ceiling for a while.

  Admitting the truth wasn’t an easy thing to do. Luckily, there was only one person I trusted with my heart, so there was only one person for me to tell. Considering the story of what his parents had done, it was easy to convince myself that he’d understand.

  “My father died from cirrhosis of the liver,” I admitted. “He drank himself to death.”

  It was difficult to believe that the man I’d earlier claimed was my hero was a drunk. A drunk that was so deep in his addiction that he drank himself through four stages of cirrhosis, and to death.

  “Oh, shit. I just assumed…I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. Before he got sick, his hands shook really bad if he went any period of time without a drink. That’s why he taught me to crack safes. He could not hold still enough to do it himself. He lost his touch. I started doing it at his place of business when I was a teenager. Then, one night when he was drunk, he told me why he really did it.”

  “Damn. At least you guys were close until the end, though.” He rolled onto his side. “You were, right?”

  “He was pretty much my only friend,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t get frustrated with him. He did dumb stuff. He said dumb stuff. But, I knew it wasn’t really him. It was a drunken version of him. I’ve heard people say if you get a drunken asshole to sober up, you’re left with an asshole. Well, my father was a good guy. So, when he was drunk, he was a pretty good drunken guy.” I laughed. “Most of the time.”

  “Sounds like you guys maintained a good relationship.”

  “We did,” I said. “That’s the point I was going to make. We maintained a good relationship despite him making a butt-load of bad decisions. I’m not telling you what to do, but I’ll suggest that it’s been eighteen years. That’s a long, long time.”

  “Not going to happen,” he said. “I’ve got my life, and they’ve got theirs. There’s no sense in me giving them a chance to do something to hurt me again.”

  “So, if someone disrespects you, you’re done with them?”

  “If someone does it repeatedly,” he said. “Absolutely. I write them off.”

  I didn’t know his parents, and I couldn’t pretend to know the grief that they’d put him thorough. I could do my best to cause him to consider giving them a chance to make amends, though.

  “Using that logic,” I reasoned. “I should just walk away from the club now.”

  He sat up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Not what,” I said. “Who.”

  Then, at the same time, we both said his name.

  “Cash.”

  35

  Goose

  We were called to Baker’s offic
e for an impromptu Monday morning meeting. While Reno, Tito, Cash and I were gathered around Baker’s desk, Ally admired the view from the third-floor window.

  “I’ve cut each of you a check through the LLC.” Baker said as he began passing out envelopes. “I know the holidays are a few months past, but I called it a Holiday Bonus. Just keeping everything legit.”

  Cash snatched his pocket knife from his jeans and cut the envelope open before Baker passed out the last one.

  “Fifty g’s,” Cash said, slapping the check against his open palm. “That’s what I’m fucking talking about.”

  I folded my envelope and put it in my back pocket.

  “What’d you get?” Cash asked.

  “I’m sure it’s the same as yours?”

  “You ain’t gonna look at it?”

  “I’ll see it when I take it to the bank.”

  Dressed in jeans, sneakers and a tee shirt, Ally was seated along the window’s ledge, just taking it all in. With her hair in a ponytail and wearing her new choice of attire, she looked much different than she did in the dresses and sneakers that I ‘d become accustomed to.

  Hell, she could wear anything and look good in it. As I watched her watching us, I felt that she was being ostracized. Sadly, the only person in the room that hadn’t accepted her was Cash.

  He noticed me looking at her and glanced in her direction. “She better not get the same amount we did.”

  I balled my fists. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  He looked me up and down quickly before giving me a dismissive wave of his hand. “You better grow up before you bow up, motherfucker.”

  I puffed my chest and put my nose mere inches from his. “I mean it, Cash,” I said through my teeth. “I’m done with your bullshit.”

  “Really, motherfucker? You’re going to let a bitch get between us?” he asked. “After all we’ve been—”

  I swung my right fist into his chin with all my might. I followed with a left hook to his temple that I’d been wanting to swing for fifteen years. The first punch obviously caught him unprepared. The second took every bit of remaining wind from his sails.