Playing With Monsters

by Layla Wolfe

  Ford waved his own piece, indicating the others should prepare to shoot. They’d force that fucking cage off the road come hell or high water.

  Ford was the first to shoot out a tire, looked like the right driver’s side one. Roman couldn’t resist showing off his hot dogging skills, and he chose to ride the shoulder trying to get one of the passenger tires. Unexpectedly, the Bamboo Boy, now fishtailing a little with a flat front tire, braked the car from maybe seventy down to thirty. This ingenious maneuver brought Knoxie on a sudden collision course with their rear bumper. Knoxie laid down his ride, separating from his saddle with frightening speed, pinwheeling in the air like a crash test dummy. It even looked from Roman’s point of view that Knoxie may have gone under the car’s tires.

  Pissed off beyond reason now, Roman shot out both passenger’s tires. Now the passenger was shooting back at him with that idiotic gangster’s side grip that made it impossible to aim. The Bamboo Boy snarled and displayed his gold teeth as bullets breezed past Roman. Roman now rode in the dirt, so he had to keep one eye out for any cacti that might unseat him as the Caddy rolled slower and slower. Shrugging, he just shot the Bamboo Boy through the forehead.

  At last, the fucking car came to a stop, rolling off-road down and up a slight gulley. “Go back, get Knoxie!” Ford bellowed at Roman.

  Roman had to do as ordered, but Lytton seemed to get him. “I’ll do it,” Lytton volunteered, perhaps understanding the enormous stake Roman had in taking out these triad asshats. Ford nodded, and the two remaining riders put down their kickstands and approached the Caddy cautiously, barrels raised.

  “He’s just sitting there,” Roman said through gritted teeth. “We could just bury him right now.”

  “We’d get no intel that way,” Ford pointed out sensibly. They continued nearly crawling forward as the Asian sat immobile in the driver’s seat. Was he dead, too? Unlike the time he’d shot Riker, Roman knew the passenger was as dead as a parrot. He’d seen skull and brain matter splash the driver’s shoulder. “You go round the passenger side, but be prepared to shoot this motherfucker.”

  Roman did as Ford ordered. It seemed too good to be true that the driver exited the vehicle with hands held high and allowed Ford to bind his hands at the small of his back with zip ties. Roman opened the passenger door and gingerly searched the dead Bamboo Boy. He took a cell phone, his wallet which probably carried no ID of any worth, and, oddly enough, a Fitbit pedometer the guy had around his wrist like a watch. This triad member didn’t look too overweight, but one never knew what he’d looked like before.

  “Cover him,” Ford told Roman as he thumbed his own cell to make a call. He made arrangements for the chase truck to come transport their prisoner back to The Citadel in Pure and Easy. Then he kicked the prisoner, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground. “You’d better not have killed or maimed any of our friends, Bruce Lee.” As expected, the guy remained mute. Ford told Roman, “Speed was hit in the shoulder, so some women took him to the hospital in Winslow. We think he’ll be okay.”

  Roman leaned back against the nonoperative Caddy and lit a smashed cigarette that had been in his back jeans pocket. There was nothing to do but wait for Bobo Segrist.

  “You know,” said Ford in a reflective tone, “when I was younger, I would’ve just shot this seaweed-sucker in the head, like you just did to his buddy. But you know what? I know a lot more now. I know we can get a lot more out of him if we just take him back, you know, water board him a little.”

  Roman nodded knowledgeably, although he’d never been in Ford’s shoes before. A few Chevy trucks ambled on by, a few rice-burner cages filled with tourists looking for turquoise jewelry, but Roman didn’t bat an eyelash. They just looked like a few guys waiting for a tow truck to arrive. Roman inhaled a great lungful of smoke. “I hear you. Things’ve changed at the speed of light lately. You say nowadays you don’t automatically kill everyone.”

  Ford nodded. “True that, brother.”

  “Well, nowadays I don’t automatically turn down every chick who climbs all over me.” He knew he didn’t look that casual, glancing up at the blazing sun through his pure black KD shades.

  Ford mentally elbowed his new brother. “Oh, yeah? Maddy was telling me she was hoping you’d push up on that. She likes her because she’s a fellow nurse and they sort of look alike. We’ve both got impeccable taste.”

  Roman guessed he must’ve been dying to confide in someone. “I mean to make her my property as soon as I can get her home safe.”

  “Home…meaning Pure and Easy.”

  “Exactly. I like being patched in with you brothers. Maddy said she could send Gudrun to some school in Flagstaff.”

  “Maddy’s alma mater.”

  “Right. Hey, hey, Triad!” The Bamboo Boy had been squirming around as though intending to go for something in his back pocket. A kick to the tailbone stopped the guy, but it gave Roman an idea.

  Taking the car keys from the ignition, he opened the trunk. “Aha.”

  Ford came around to the trunk. They both hefted a liter baggie of different colored rock crystals, one pink, and one jade green.

  “Bath salts,” said Roman.

  “This here is methylone,” said Ford. “Totally synthetic Molly additives. Lytton would know more. But I venture to guess this is what they gave your gal and the others in that trap house of Riker’s.”

  Maybe because the sun had gone behind a cloud, Roman shuddered. That monster Riker needed to be discarded like yesterday’s chutney.

  “You know,” said Ford, tossing his bag of pretty crystals, “I think this run will establish your rep, Kiosk.”

  Roman groused, although the pit of his stomach fluttered to be acknowledged like that. “As long as no one calls me Manhole anymore.”

  “No worries,” said Ford. “And we might come up with something better than Kiosk, too.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  GUDRUN

  Roman was very busy for several days after the Painted Desert run.

  Of course I still needed protecting because Riker was still on the loose. No one had seen hide nor hair of that monster. Wolf moved into my Cordoba Housing palace with me because Roman was spending so much time at The Citadel with Ford and Lytton doing club stuff. There was no cable TV in our home, so I either surfed a laptop or read from the house’s large library of classics. I hadn’t seen most of that shit since high school—Great Expectations, Little Women, and even more modern classics like Catch-22 and A Town Like Alice. So there was no lack of stuff to do.

  I even ventured into the backyard with its sweeping views of the distant buttes to read my books. I saw that guy Reg Eastwood several times, waving as he watered his saguaro garden. He even came over a few times to see how I was, give us some extra eggs from the security guard’s chickens, stuff like that. He was all right, even sexy in a silver fox way, but I had my heart set on Roman.

  I had made up my mind. It was time to move on from Vince. His death was a tragedy, but not something I should suffer from my entire life. I could cherish our memories together, the way he’d saved me from a life of squalor and been my shining knight, and do him honor while still getting on with it. Now here was Roman, quite literally another shining knight, saving me from my own stupidity. He seemed willing to get over at least part of his determination to be celibate. We were all forging ahead with life.

  The Two Guns rumble had made me feel a part of something bigger, at last. There was no way I was going to leave my newfound family behind to return to the boredom and danger of Tucson. Not even when Riker was apprehended—and I meant when!—would I go back to that shithole. I had family now, real genuine family who would go to the wall for me. Look at what Madison Illuminati had already done for me, and I was just the daughter of her attorney. She had talked to someone at the nursing school, gotten my transcripts, and had me accepted for the fall term. All this with nary the raising of a finger on my part.

  To think of what the club as a whole had done for me
was monumental. Hiding me in this strange, beautiful neighborhood, empty like some Twilight Zone post-apocalyptic Spanish Modern district. Wrought iron gates, heavy wooden doors with beveled glass, arched windows and tinier high windows just to let in beautiful, indirect light—it was the eeriest and most graceful hideout ever. And yeah, with Roman gone, sometimes I wandered into his room and held his T-shirts to my face just to breathe in the essence of him. I was worse, more hopeless than a panty-sniffer. My body screamed out for the pheromones of my man.

  I was a goner.

  Sucking his dick while screwing him with that flashlight, well, that was definitely the highlight of my life up to that point. I’d done some wild things with Vince, him being a fitness photographer and all. In that life, you move with a “fast” crowd, you learn certain things. Certain things become the norm. But never had it occurred to me to violate a man up the ass like that, and man, what a power rush.

  I knew there was a certain spot up there, but wasn’t exactly sure where. I knew when I hit it with Roman. His dick spontaneously combusted, absolutely splattered me with powerful blasts, the second I rubbed the lip of the gadget against that spot. I was already on the verge of orgasm myself, rubbing my squishy pussy lips against my own instep, sort of rotating my hips like a mechanical doll so I could get traction on my clit. Can you imagine how glorious it was to have that big limb of a cock in my hot hand? Seeing the ecstasy on his beautiful languid face as I corkscrewed that thing up his ass, lapping the drop of semen shining on the slit of his glans…All my senses were alive as I imprinted everything on them. I will never forget this experience.

  And already, I wanted to repeat it.

  But not only had Roman not been able to ride back with me, he’d apparently gone into hiding at The Citadel now.

  There was some gossip about the Bamboo Boys, the Chinese who had kidnapped Shannon. Madison’s brother Speed had been shot through the window while I had been hiding in the office. Maddy, June, and a few other women had rushed him to the hospital and he was fine, but a crowd of Bare Bones officers had gone racing off to find the Chinese responsible. Apparently they had. That was all I knew, but tensions were high.

  Madison came back at me with some good news from my MRI. I had a nonunion in the joint. There was an ultrasonic device of some kind, so there was definite hope I might be able to live the rest of my life pain-free, even if I did still limp like a wooden-legged pirate.

  So I believe I was deep into the man-on-man wrestling scene in Women in Love when the knock came on the door. Wolf Glaser usually played video games at the dining table, so he was the first to look through the glass and open the door.

  It was my dad, Slushy, of all people.

  I had only halfway raised myself off the couch before Slushy was in the room, hands spread wide like an emcee. He wore an electric green shirt paired with a butter yellow tie, but that was my father for you. For all of his claims that he just wanted to be an average guy, blending in while digging Che Guevara, reading subtitles in movies, and listening to singer-songwriters, the guy sure stood out from the pack.

  “My little girl.” He’d been calling me that, I guess since I was his only daughter, as far as we both knew. “Congratulations on the MRI news. Madison told me. Looks like you’re going to be among the walking and talking of us again.” He looked at Wolf Glaser and chuckled. “Unlike Riker, who may continue to walk, but not talk.”

  Now I stood up fully, the book falling off my lap. “What? You’ve had news of Riker?”

  Slushy came forward eagerly. “No, no, not really. Just that a source saw him up in Jerome with one of those voice box talkie things that people with throat cancer get. We figured your brother at least took out his larynx so he can’t verbally torture anyone anymore.”

  I didn’t know what to respond to first—Slushy calling Roman my “brother,” or the idea that someone had seen Riker missing a larynx. “Well if he’s up in Jerome, can’t someone just go up there and, like, find him? How hard can it be? Jerome’s a tiny town.” Jerome was a touristic ghost town up in the mountains above Cottonwood, where Madison and June had grown up. The population could be counted in the hundreds, and a guy like Riker would be obvious in Phoenix, much less Jerome.

  Slushy sat casually on the arm of the couch. “I’ll grant you that, pumpkin.” “Pumpkin” sounded like something he was trying out, to see if it fit. I did have orangey hair. And I liked the idea of my dad calling me a pet name, even though I was twenty-five. “And believe you me, we’ve sent the most capable men up there to hunt him down.”

  “Roman?”

  Slushy looked confused. “Not Roman. I think they sent Knoxie and Tuzigoot up there, two of our best trackers. No, we need Roman here to protect you, my little gem!”

  It looked like Wolf was rolling his eyes, standing behind Slushy. “Yeah. How hard can it be finding a biker who wears both Red and Black Wing patches?”

  When Slushy frowned fiercely at Wolf, it prompted me to ask, “What are red and black wings?”

  Wolf stepped forward excitedly, like a kid impatient to gross someone out. “See, this originated in the old biker days.”

  “And doesn’t happen anymore,” Slushy intoned loudly.

  Wolf didn’t take the warning. “A brother could get his red wings by eating out a chick on her period. Black wings were for, well, eating out an African American girl.”

  Slushy rolled his eyes. “Things aren’t like that anymore, pumpkin. For example, no one would call them ‘black wings.’”

  “Or red wings,” I added.

  But Wolf was adamant. “What’s wrong with any of that? A guy could get both wings at once if he wanted. So that’s the story behind where Riker got those wing patches.”

  “Yeah,” yelled Slushy, “and he shouldn’t even be wearing our colors if he knows what’s good for him.”

  “He had a cut on,” I recalled. “There were lots of patches, but I definitely know that none of them said Bare Bones. I would’ve noticed that.”

  Wolf stuck out his lower lip. “He wouldn’t have the nerve.”

  Slushy stood, holding his hands up high. “Listen. I’m here because of a different, more righteous mission, Prospect Wolf.” He slid two fingers into his suit jacket pocket and withdrew something that looked like a wristwatch. Wolf grasped it and held it up to the light like a diamond. “You’re not going to get much intel that way, sonny. This here is a pedometer that Roman took off a stiff he found on the side of the road near Wupatki National Monument.”

  “Ah,” said Wolf, all-knowing and all-seeing. “The Bamboo Boys. Gotcha.”

  “I need you to ride that up to our IT guy at Leaves of Grass. I’m sure you’ve met Tobiah Weingarten.”

  Wolf’s face instantly soured, as though he smelled poo. “Leaves of Grass? I’d rather have math homework every night for the rest of my life than ride up there.”

  I tried snatching it from Wolf. For a guy who acted like it was a turd, he sure didn’t want to give it up. “Then let me drive it up, god damn it! I’m growing moss sitting around here, and D.H. Lawrence isn’t any more action-packed than he was in high school.”

  Slushy had been perusing the back of my book he’d picked up from the floor. “This the one with the wrestling scene?”

  Wolf played “keep away” with the pedometer. He told Slushy over my shoulder, “I’d rather tell Kid Rock that wrestling is fake than drive up to Leaves of Grass!”

  Throwing down the book, Slushy leaped to his feet. “Oh, cumon, you baby! What’ve you got against Leaves of Grass? It’s a perfectly nice drive past Mormon Lake. Here, if it’s any consolation, I’ll give you the honor of escorting my daughter. There. How’s that?”

  “I can go?” I asked breathlessly.

  Slushy smiled indulgently. “Sure, pumpkin. You can talk with your friend up there, have some girl time together. But make sure you don’t stray from this guy’s side.”

  “Will I get Roman back as my protector?”

  “Sure, sure
. He’s just doing some…other stuff right now. Oh, and here, almost forgot.” Slushy reached inside his jacket to withdraw a cellphone, which he tossed to Wolf. “Take this burner to Tobiah too. I doubt he’s going to get anything off it, but it’s worth a shot.”

  So that was how I was finally allowed out of the Cordoban Housing area again, this time on a new journey. My dad Slushy was right—the scenery was absolutely amazing. I felt free, almost pain-free too with just the right balance of Percocet and Ibuprofen Maddy had me on.

  It might have taken me for-fucking-ever to get a new beginning in life. I may have been a late bloomer. My real life may have been stalled by the death of my beloved husband. But all wasn’t fucking over. Life had just begun.

  ROMAN

  Roman had spent a few days haunting the streets of Jerome. He was starting to think the Ochoa informant was wrong—after all, this wasn’t Ochoa turf, so what was the guy doing up here in this tourist mining town unless he was mixing margaritas or playing flamenco music? Roman could’ve stayed with Ford and Lytton at The Citadel getting information from that surviving Bamboo Boy, but he’d lobbied for this job. It was a pleasant enough assignment in the gorgeous mile-high desert city, wandering the old-timey, dusty antique stores and ancient hotels.

  But Roman wasn’t all about pleasant. He couldn’t just rest on his laurels, having earned his Filthy Few patch by burying that Bamboo Boy. He wasn’t going to have his old lady sew that patch on until he’d truly earned it by taking out Riker.

  And there was no sign of the elusive fucker anywhere.

  It was agreed that no one would tell Gudrun he was one of the search team. Not that any club business was female business, but everyone agreed she didn’t need her anxiety burden to be raised. Madison said something about her blood pressure being high and insomnia and other things Roman felt ashamed of for not knowing. So, after a few days of this bullshit, Roman took off. He left Knoxie and Tuzigoot to inconspicuously blend in with the miners and tourists of Jerome.