Playing With Monsters

by Layla Wolfe

  Roman relaxed enough to sip his wine. “It was a blast, man. Two Guns is nominally Cutlass turf, which added to the fun.”

  Wolf relaxed too. He could be fun and goofy when not acting overly cop-like. “I’ll bet. I heard that last year you guys cut the patches off a bunch of Cutlasses.”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘a bunch.’ There were maybe three Cutlasses that Birdseye, General Schwarzkopf, and that Pure and Easy brother Duji held down and cut the patches off of.”

  Mentioning Schwarzkopf sobered the two men. They hadn’t even gotten to give him a proper burial before being forced to take cover up here in the high desert. Club funerals were a big, ceremonial deal. It was a show of support and power to ride together in the procession, showing respect for the fallen. Schwarzkopf’s wife had probably been forced to do everything herself since everyone had to scatter to the four winds.

  Gudrun padded soundlessly into the room on bare feet. When Wolf Glaser turned to view her, all expression fell from his face. Roman was shocked and pleased that she still wore the draping pink gown. All she seemed to have done was brush her hair. He poured her some wine too.

  “Hi, Wolf. What’s up?”

  Roman took charge. “Wolf was just reminding me about the Painted Desert run last year.”

  Gudrun accepted the wine glass. “Oh, I don’t want to hear club business. It’s none of my concern.”

  “This might be,” said Wolf, finding his tongue.

  “She can hear,” said Roman. “What about the run?”

  “Well, it’s time for it again. And it happens to coincide with the BOLO we put out on Shannon’s vehicle. It’s panned out. It was discovered abandoned near the meteor crater, just a hop and a skip away from Two Guns.”

  Gudrun gasped. “Abandoned? No sign of Shannon?”

  Wolf shook his head, grim. “No sign. But what Ford is hoping to do, he’s hoping that by inviting you on the run, it might draw out some of those fuckers from the woodwork, you dig?”

  Roman dug. He’d been dying of the inactivity around the officer’s housing anyway. It was certainly not unpleasant to be stuck with Gudrun in the genteel Cordoban Housing Area. But he was starting to get antsy, to get out into the world and do some good. He’d been so restless he’d almost taken a shotgun out onto the airfield to hunt rabbits for dinner. His vendetta against Tony Tormenta burned deep in his soul, and now that he knew Riker was in cahoots with Tormenta, one was as good as the other. “Good call. Maybe we can draw out some of The Bamboo Boys while we’re at it. But who’ll look after Gudrun? Wolf, will you stay here with her?” The Bamboo Boys, the club had deciphered, was the arm of the Chinese triad responsible for the shitty, fake Molly the girls had ingested. They were definitely behind some white—and Chinese and Mexican—slavery in the corridor between Tucson and Salt Lake City. In other words, Bare Bones territory. Ford’s men Duji and Tuzigoot had recently stopped a truck crammed with young maidens, thinking it was a rival’s gun-running truck. Since it wasn’t, they’d been forced to let the truck go, but suspicions and resentments had lingered.

  “They want me to go, too, Boss,” said Wolf.

  Both men looked at Gudrun. Roman said, “Then who…Not that fucking Reg Eastwood! I’m not going anywhere if that fucking sleazy operator Reg Eastwood is going to—”

  “No,” said Wolf firmly. “Not Reg Eastwood. They want Gudrun to come on the run, too.”

  Roman stared at Gudrun. She stared back.

  Finally Gudrun looked back at Wolf. “I…I don’t understand—”

  Roman said, “I don’t get it, Wolf. Look, let me talk to Ford directly. I’ll wait till the morning ’cause it’s late and he probably went home, but I fucking doubt he said that. What purpose would it serve, putting Gudrun in harm’s way? Doesn’t that fly in the face of what we’re trying to accomplish here?”

  Wolf shrugged. “Beats the shit out of me, man. He’s got some plan. He said something about you not riding two up with Gudrun, maybe her riding someone else’s pussy pad.”

  Roman was incensed. “What, like I’m not good enough to protect her?”

  Wolf held up his hands, surrender style. “More like you’re a big enough target without doubling it by adding Gudrun. That was my impression. But yeah, talk to Ford. The run starts next Wednesday so we have enough time to get there, get a heat on, and pass out before stumbling over any Bamboo Boys—”

  “I’m not getting a heat on, if any Bamboo Boys are in my turf.”

  “—or maybe pretend to get a heat on, for that matter. There are all sorts of strategies we can employ in this case, and it’s a particularly twisty one, so go over it with Ford.”

  “It could be fun,” Gudrun piped up. “What exactly happens on a ‘run’?”

  Roman looked at the woman he’d just brought to orgasm with his mouth. If she thought it might be fun, it might be fun. “Well, we pretty much drag race and fight with cowboys. Cutlasses, sometimes, if they get wind we’re on their turf.”

  Wolf Glaser chuckled. “I heard last year there was a bodacious wet T-shirt contest in a bar.”

  Frowning, Roman went to protectively put an arm around Gudrun. He steered her toward the back door, flicking on the outside light. “There won’t be any fucking wet T-shirt contest, Wolf.”

  “Aw, but why not?”

  Glancing over Gudrun’s shoulder, Roman made a face in her direction. Wolf finally got it, and raised his hands again.

  “Hey, did you grill this steak?”

  “Help yourself,” said Roman, daring to open the back door. They took a few steps into the sandy backyard. Roman never took his arm off Gudrun’s shoulders.

  He said, “Look, I’m sure if Ford says it’s all right, then it’s all right. We’ll keep you in the center of the pack where it’s safest, away from the hassle of figuring out lane changes, gas stops, and idiotic drivers.”

  “And random shooters.”

  Roman shuddered. He had to believe that Ford had a plan. They’d been hiding in the officer’s housing for a week and a half now and nothing had happened. This must be Ford’s way of forcing the enemy’s hand, of driving them into the open. Flushing them out, like foxes chasing pheasants out of the bush. “Listen, Gudrun. This is the start to a whole new way of life. You have to trust in it. We’re going to be together forever on the road like brothers, you know? Brothers until the wind stops blowing, the grass stops growing, and the river stops flowing.” He quoted something Fred Birdseye always said before the start of a run.

  Gudrun leaned her head back against his bare shoulder. Her silky hair aroused Roman again, stiffening his penis. Jesus Criminy, I need to learn to keep it in my pants. If he was to remain celibate, he couldn’t be getting hard over every damned lock of hair.

  She said, “That was the best orgasm of my life, Roman. You really know how to, shall we say, smoke the fur.”

  Roman relaxed with her ribbing. “Yeah, I’m pretty good at going under the house.”

  “You like your Egg McMuff.”

  “I’m partial to a seafood dinner.”

  “Hey,” said Wolf Glaser darkly.

  Spinning around, Roman saw him standing as a silhouette in the doorway, holding a plate of steak and salad. Had he overheard them making fun of his euphemisms? Roman struggled to withhold a guffaw. “What’s up?”

  “Is it all right if I have the last of that asparagus?”

  Gudrun craned her head around Roman’s arm. “Go ahead. But we don’t have any more tuna tacos.”

  Roman added, “No eating at the Y.”

  Wolf’s shadow was definitely full of consternation as he withdrew into the kitchen again. Roman and Gudrun held each other, shaking with laughter.

  “I hope it’s always like this with you,” she said, leaning weakly against him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  GUDRUN

  The first leg of the trip I was to ride “two up” with Lytton Illuminati, Ford’s younger half-brother and sergeant-at-arms for the club. We all met at the Citadel’s a
irplane hangar, where the mechanics Speed and Bellamy were helping brothers wrench up their rides, check mufflers, put in new plugs, change oil—anything to prepare for the trip. I watched as Faux Pas offered Duji an extra chain. There was an overwhelming sense of brotherhood I’d never felt anywhere else. Everyone was in a good mood, spotting each other bike parts, handing each other valuable Young Man Blue weed, one of two popular varieties grown on Lytton’s Leaves of Grass pot farm.

  Tracy was staying up there with Tobiah, and Wolf Glaser was fit to be tied. I don’t know how he had developed such a proprietary feeling for my friend. Maybe because Roman had carried me out of that trap house and Wolf had assisted Tracy, he felt connected to her. But even now, he was complaining.

  “Have you heard anything from up there?” he asked me. “Anything at all, have you talked to Tracy?”

  “Sure. They gave me a new iPhone, so we talk every day.”

  “What does she say? What does she say about that Tobiah nerd? I can’t picture her getting into a dweeb like that. He wears white belts! And his shoes make him look like he’s about to hit up the golf links.”

  Tracy talked quite a bit about Tobiah, actually, but I didn’t tell Wolf. They were doing things together like sunbathing, playing Klingon Boggle, and riding quads around the property. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world, for my prison at the Cordoban Housing Area. I could have bitched about my Spanish-style dungeon but hell, I couldn’t have asked for a sexier jailer.

  Our hookup the other night had stayed fresh in my mind in all of its details. Roman Serpico had honestly given me the orgasm of my life, even coming on the tail of my own auto-explosion. Good God in heaven, that had been the last fucking thing I’d expected to see, Roman in the shower jerking off so erotically. I had the impression he was taking it slowly because he didn’t want to come so fast. And when he leaped out from behind the curtain and grabbed me, well, the last thing I expected was to find his erogenous hawk’s nose shoved up my cunt.

  He was smart, I had to hand that to him. Muff diving meant that he could remain celibate, technically. The elephant in the room was when were we going to do it again, and how far would we go? So really, so far, there wasn’t much to even spill to Slushy. He was in the garage now. Of course he wouldn’t go on the run with us. He drove a Prius. And he wasn’t in the club, not a patch holder.

  “You’ll ride with Lytton for the first stretch,” he told me. “He’s abso-fucking-lutely reliable, a hundred percent A-1 solid, and he knows his firearms.”

  “Then I’ll switch to someone else’s bike?”

  “Right. We want to keep Riker and The Bamboo Boys on their toes. We know Riker’s coming for us, we just don’t know when. Hell, he could easily come get me in my archery range office. What’m I going to do, shoot him with an arrow?”

  “Through the throat?” suggested Wolf. Meaning that Riker had last been seen with a bandage around his throat, a vulnerable spot after Roman had shot him there.

  Slushy pointed at Wolf. “Good idea. But that guy’s notoriously hard to kill, not that I even know how to use a bow and arrow anyway. Being with Lytton, or an explosives expert like Ford, is her best bet.”

  Slushy sure did things by the book, I had to hand that to him. He tried to blend in. His lawyer’s office was in downtown P&E behind an indoor archery range named The Hip Quiver. He shopped at Saturday Farmer’s Markets, drank beer from microbreweries, and had just cancelled a rock climbing class with Duji in order to see us off today. He really seemed to just want to be normal.

  I was starting to genuinely like my father, seeing him within the context of the club. Seeing what he did for the club on a daily basis made me respect him. When I was a kid, I’d had no concept of the high stakes he was playing with the cartel. I was only nine when he’d gone underground with the Ochoas, vanishing from our lives. And of course Valentina’s constant badmouthing of him over the next sixteen years didn’t help elevate him in my estimation. I was only now getting to know Aaron “Slushy” McGill, and I was surprised to find I might genuinely like him.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “How can I be glued to Ford or Lytton’s side the entire time? They have their own wives to look after. If someone is following us, intent on infiltrating our group, they can just hit me while I’m going to the bathroom.”

  “Don’t say that!” cried Slushy.

  “Yes, don’t fucking say that,” said Tuzigoot. He was a giant Central American hulk of a craggy man, with a face that might be found carved into an Incan pyramid. You felt safe with him, to say the least. “At all times you’re going to be surrounded by family, Gudrun. We’ve all been instructed under penalty of death to keep you out of harm’s way while keeping an eye out for Riker and his buddies. Don’t worry. You’ve got thirty brothers who all loathe that sonofabitch’s guts.”

  “Amen to that,” said Knoxie, the hot ink slinger who was married to Bellamy, the wrench. They had both been there on that religious compound when Riker had shot Ziggy in cold blood, the last time he’d escaped. Or now I should say, the second to last time he’d gotten away. “And you know we’re heading into Ochoa’s plantation territory too, Slushy, so we’ve already reached out to him for tips.”

  “That’s all right.” Slushy sliced his hands, palms down, as though smoothing out a sand castle. “I’ve had to deal with the Ochoas again due to your friendly business connections to them.”

  Knoxie shrugged. “Business is business, man.”

  “I understand. And Ruben Ochoa definitely has feelers everywhere in the Four Corners area. He’s got that entire area covered with eyes and cameras on that whole I-40 corridor. I can’t look in my rearview and hold a grudge against them since they wound up trading me to the best motorcycle club in the world.”

  “Aw, Slushy,” said Knoxie. “You make me blush.”

  Lytton stuck his head into our crowd, peeking around Knoxie and slapping Tuzigoot on the bicep. “We’re heading out, Gudrun. You ready?”

  “I’m ready,” I stated, but Slushy had other ideas.

  “You sure? What kind of shades you got? You got to have original KD’s shades. Nothing better than them. Yours look kind of like CVS shades.”

  “My shades are fine, Slushy.” I still insisted on calling him Slushy.

  His voice went higher. “You sure? KD’s protects from sun, wind, and debris!”

  “Hers look fine to me,” Knoxie assured the attorney.

  “What about boots? You gonna wear those? Those don’t have steel toes, do they?”

  Tuzigoot stepped in. “There are pros and cons to steel toes, Slushy. You can see, some guys just wear tennies. There’s not a firm line drawn in the sand on that issue. Some think steel toes are more dangerous.”

  Slushy kept on. “What about a sleeping bag? I know these morons prefer to sleep in the sand or in whichever campfire they happen to stumble into, but not my girl! You need a proper sleeping bag, and a pillow!”

  “And a tent,” added Knoxie. “We’ve got it covered, man. The women sleep in tents. Bobo Segrist is driving a chase truck full of shit like that—sleeping bags, tents, coolers for food, water jugs. I’m telling you, it’s not like the old days, eh, Tuzigoot?”

  The giant Incan grunted. “Yeah. Luckily Brunhilda doesn’t like coming on these runs, but I know some wives do.” He shrugged. “It’s the women who keep us from burning ourselves to death.”

  “Or impaling yourselves on a saguaro,” added Slushy, pointing at the ground.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked my father, but Lytton was yanking on my arm.

  At the last moment, I blew Slushy a kiss. I don’t know what got into me. It had never crossed my mind to blow my dad a kiss before, but I did. It seemed to give him a look of satisfaction. He sank his hands deeper into the pockets of his Dockers pants. He had that widely horizontal smile of satisfaction, as though he was thinking “that’s my girl.” It made me feel proud. I wasn’t sure what I was doing to make him smile in this dopey way. I was just
heading out on a run that would involve a lot of drunken revelry and literally dancing on the tops of bars. I wasn’t even driving my own scoot, like Bellamy was doing. I couldn’t even ride my own man’s pussy pad.

  I caught a brief glance of Roman on my way to Lytton’s Harley. He had a wrench in his hand as he squatted by his old FXR tightening up something or other while Bellamy leaned over and pointed at his engine. We caught each other’s gaze for a split second, but that was it. I knew he would be riding with the second pack, or wave of bikes. We couldn’t all go as one unit or we’d terrorize the population of Coconino County.

  I couldn’t read the look in his face. Since the pussy-eating incident he’d been back to normal—thoughtful, deep, honest Roman Serpico. Or should I say deep, honest, celibate Roman Serpico. He hadn’t so much as tried to kiss me since the night Wolf Glaser had probably figured out what we’d been up to, with my personal scent slathered on Roman’s beautiful face, the various wet spots on the back of my gown. I angrily figured Roman had renewed his vow of chastity. I knew he wasn’t going to let any mere woman stand between him and his vendetta to get even for his father’s murder, and I had to respect that. In short, he wasn’t acting like a typical guy. He wasn’t letting his wang dictate his life. I couldn’t possibly be angry at that.

  But I was. Men were dicks, but Roman was sure proving that adage wrong. Every step of the way he’d been proving himself to be a trustworthy, steadfast, honest—well, I’m making him sound boring which he is not, so I will shut up there.

  Even so, despite my frustration, soon I was carried away with the rush of the ride. Maybe thirty brothers—none from the Phoenix chapter, but several from Prescott—kick-started their engines simultaneously out on the asphalt. Ford had moved all of the heavy equipment he rented out of the way so there was a clear shot down the old, potholed runway. Men angled their bikes into what seemed like an agreed-upon formation. It seemed as though officers rode in the front of the pack. Their Veep, a guy named Turk, had gone off to form a new gay MC in the western part of the state. So Lytton was Veep now as well as sergeant-at-arms, but we had to ride in the center. Men moved off as one unit, one glorious, buzzing, humming unit, like a giant moveable beehive. For the first time, I understood the need to belong, the need to be part of something bigger than one’s self. I’d heard Roman spout his biker philosophy plenty of times, but this was the first time I felt it in my gut, with my hands grasping Lytton’s waist. I knew I was right where I belonged.