by Paula Cox
“Why did you pick here?” I ask, climbing from the car.
Heather smiles shyly. “I couldn’t resist the urge to see Grizzly in a place like this,” she admits.
I take Charlotte from the car and we walk into the building, across the dance floor to a corner booth. I’m surprised to see Dad sitting there alone, a whisky before him, tapping the table with his fingertips. I thought he’d have a few men with him. I don’t even get a chance to say hello when he rises to his feet and brushes down his clothes, like a man before a date. I watch in astonishment as Grizzly, the man who for all my life has been a terrifying MC President, makes as though to offer Heather his hand to shake, and then thinks better of it and nods instead.
“Heather,” he murmurs, completely ignoring me and Charlotte.
“Jacob,” Heather says.
Before we left, Heather straightened her hair and put on a red sparkling dress I’ve only ever seen her once before: in a club, at night, when she wanted to attract the attention of men. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but seeing her at ten o’clock in the morning in an empty bar standing before Dad in that attention-grabbing dress really brings it home. Heather truly does have a thing for Dad!
“I . . . uh . . . I was surprised it was you who called me,” Dad says, like a nervous teenager.
“Yeah, well—you know.”
After an awkward pause, both of them seem to remember where they are. Heather spins on her heels—red, sparkling, emphasizing her calf muscles—and takes Charlotte from my embrace. “I’ll leave you to it,” she says. “Wouldn’t want to get in the way of business.”
She leaves the bar, clip-clipping on the floor, with Dad watching her every step of the way. It isn’t until she’s completely out of view that Dad turns to me. “Where is he, then?”
“Are we just going to pretend that didn’t happen?” I ask, sitting down in the booth.
“What?” Dad grunts, returning to his seat.
“You and Heather—”
“Nothing happened.” He tosses back his whisky. “Where is he, Brianna?”
“I have to call him. He wouldn’t come right away.”
“Scared?” Dad asks.
“Smart,” I counter.
“Call him, then.” Dad waves a hand, and then sits back in his chair. I’ve seen him like this before. Dormant but angry, moments before he flies into a rage. He never aims the rage at me, but I’ve seen him with the men over the years, waving his hand in the same way before going berserk. But right now he’s calm, and here, and listening. That’s all I can ask for.
I take out my cell and the scrap of paper.
Wondering how all of this is going to turn out, so nervous my hand is shaking, I make the call.
Chapter Nineteen
Slick
I have to ask for the name of the bar twice. Even when I’ve got it, I find it damn hard to believe that Grizzly would ever go to a place like that. He must have another reason for agreeing to the location, something I don’t know about. I wonder for a second if it might be Heather. I remember seeing them together when I was a kid sometimes, but they always seemed to dislike each other. I let it slide and climb onto the bike, kick it alive, and make for Primadona. Sitting outside the bar, just down the street, I do a quick scan of the surrounding areas. No Clint. No club men. Just an everyday street with a bar at the end of it.
As I climb from the bike, I keep feeling a phantom gun in the back of my head, reckoning that at any second one of Clint’s men is gonna get the drop on me. But I listen as I walk and don’t hear shit. Still, it’s only when I’ve walked through the bar’s doors and seen the hen party in the corner that I feel any sort of safe. I reckon Clint’s men ain’t above shooting up a place like this, but they wouldn’t wait this long, lettin’ me get close to Boss. When I reach the table, Grizzly is running his finger along the rim of an empty whisky glass and Brat is just sitting there with her hands in her laps, looking between us anxiously.
“Drink?” I say, as my opening line, not sure what else to say.
“Whisky,” Grizzly says.
“Alright.”
As I turn towards the bar, Brat says, “And me. Please.”
“Alright.”
I go to the bar and order three whiskies. The three of us sit silently, listening to the low, thumping music and the giggling of the hen party, as we wait for the drinks. When they arrive, we all drink them down in one gulp, Brat making a hissing noise and shaking her head. Then Grizzly sits up, placing his elbows on the table.
“Why am I here, Slick?”
“’Cause you wanna hear me out, I reckon.” I watch him as I speak, trying to gauge if I’m right. I’ve been giving it some thought. “Two months back, you locked me in the clubhouse. After I did the most for this club that’s ever been done. I reckon you didn’t just come to this idea on your own. I reckon you had that fuck Clint whisperin’ in your ear every step of the way. I reckon you’re here ’cause you’ve started to see things in Clint that you don’t like. Maybe what I said to you at the house has got you thinkin’, I dunno. All I know is you’re here and willin’ to listen, which means somethin’ must’ve changed.”
Grizzly looks away, muttering, “You’re not wrong.” I have a moment of hope, but then he follows it up with, “But that don’t change the fact that you’re drooling all over my daughter.”
“I love your daughter,” I say. “I wanna be with your daughter. Here’s the truth, Grizzly, the truth you must know by now. Charlotte is mine. Charlotte is my daughter. And if you think a man like me is goin’ to step away from my daughter and her mother, even if they happen to be your daughter and grand-daughter, you need to remind yourself who I am.”
Grizzly looks at me like he wants to punch my face in. I’ve seen him look at men like that before, and I’ve seen him smash their faces in before. But then he relaxes and leans back.
“You’re right,” he says. “I’ve known. Course I’ve known. I’m not fuckin’ blind. But I never was happy about it. That’s the truth. I wanted Brianna to have a life outside the life, a man who wasn’t—”
“Like you,” I say.
“Like me,” Grizzly agrees. He sighs, and then rubs his forehead. He looks more like a man who just wants to be left alone than the Boss right now, a man tired who hasn’t slept in years. “I don’t know if you’re right about Clint,” he says. “Got no damn idea. That’s the problem. I’ve got no damn idea no more. Got so many bastards comin’ into the club vouched for by Clint. The other day, I hear two of the bastards callin’ him Boss. I let it slide, ’cause they didn’t know I heard ’em. But . . . it’s gettin’ out of hand. But there’s one thing, Slick. There’s one thing I need to know. Clint says you betrayed us up there in Seattle. I need to know the truth. I need to know what happened up there.”
I grip the edge of the table, real dread taking hold of me. Images come into my mind: bloody, painful. Beside me, Brat makes an encouraging noise. Or maybe it’s a word. I don’t know; I can’t hear. All I can hear are the screams and begging pleas and roars of desperation from the men I was forced to kill; all I can hear are the Skull fucks calling me Beast, cheering me on as I kill mostly innocent men for their goddamn entertainment. All I can hear is a voice whispering in my head telling me I’ll never be good again, never be Sky playing with Brat on dirt bikes in the Rockies. I’ll always be the fuckin’ Beast, an animal, a killer, a traitor.
“Slick? Slick?”
Her voice comes to me like it’s inside my head, not outside. I hear her whispering inside, trying to draw me out. Then she places her hand on my forearm and I sit bolt upright like a gunshot has just gone off.
“Shit, sorry,” I mutter.
Grizzly squints at me, searching. “Let it out, son,” he says.
It’s the first encouraging thing he’s said to me since I got back from that hellhole.
“You might wanna de-patch me when you hear it,” I say.
“Let me decide on that,” Grizzly says
. “Just let it out.”
I didn’t want to tell Brat like this, in a bar with Brittany Spears being tortured on the karaoke machine, the whole place smelling like glitter and cocktails. But I know I don’t have a choice, either. This might be my only chance to let Grizzly know what went on and have him actually listen to my side of the story, without Clint twisting him against me. I take a deep breath, thankful for Brat having her arm on my shoulder, giving me support. It’s tough for a man to talk about normal, everyday shit that goes on in his head, let alone this stuff.
So I get through it all as quickly as I can, telling it from start to finish. I go over the guns being fakes, my bike breaking down on me, being thrown into the warehouse where all I could do was read and wait for the Masked Man to inflict his goddamn torture on us. I tell about the machete and the gunshot. And then I get to the night of blood and I have to order another whisky. When I’ve necked that and my chest is a little warmer than it was a minute ago, I go into the night of blood, explaining to them both about how the Skulls had shotguns and forced me to keep killin’ unless I wanted to die. When I get to this part, Brat starts to cry, soft sobs, dabbing at her face with a napkin. I can’t look at her, not yet, ’cause there’s still more to tell. I go on, and tell them about how after they decided I was the Beast, they forced me to ride with them and wear their patch. I tell how I was forced to fight other Seattle clubs with ’em, kill, steal, act as courier or muscle, and how there were always three men following me everywhere I went, ready to put a bullet in my head. I tell Grizzly that every time he came down and saw me in the cell, that was a show, put on by the Skulls to fool him.
And then I sit back, panting with the force of the memories, and wait for Grizzly to tell me that this shit is unacceptable, that this is the shit that gets a man de-patched, or worse.
Brat is still sobbing, can’t seem to be able to stop. She takes my hand and brings it to her lap, gripping it with both of hers. I expect Grizzly to say somethin’ about this, but he doesn’t. He just watches me. His expression is changed, now. It’s more like how he used to look at me when I was young, when I was his adopted son, before all this stuff went down.
“I held your father as he died,” he says, looking past me now. “Those fuckers shot him through the chest, and I held him when we waited on that damn slow ambulance. I held him, blood all over me, looking down at my best friend and seein’ the life go from his eyes. Do you know what he said, Slick? Do you know what his last words were? My son ain’t got a mom, and now he ain’t got a daddy, neither. Take care of him, Jacob. Take damn good care of him .”
Grizzly smashes the table with his fist, causing me and Brat to jump in our seats. “Whisky!” he roars.
When he’s drunk the whisky, he says, “What do you want with my daughter, Slick?”
“To be her protector,” I answer at once. “To watch out for her and my daughter. To be there for ’em.”
“Done,” Grizzly says. “Fuckin’ done. And fuck anyone who’ll get in the way of that. I told your dad I’d protect you, and I failed. I fuckin’ failed. Every time I wanted to take the boys down to Seattle and storm you out of that hellhole, I had Clint in my ear, tellin’ me it was too dangerous, you weren’t worth it. And I fuckin’ listened .” He makes a growling noise, and then lifts his whisky glass before realizing it’s empty. “Listen, I can’t say I’m happy about you two bein’ together. I wouldn’t go that far. But Brianna has always said I wouldn’t be happy with anyone she chose. And I reckon that’s right. Sittin’ here with you, Slick, and hearin’ your story, I believe that for the first time. If you ain’t good enough, who is?”
“That means a lot to me,” I say. “A damn lot.”
“Alright, let’s get back to the clubhouse before we start growing lady parts.”
“Dad!” Brat squeals, her voice breaking through her tears. “Why’d you have to go and ruin a nice moment like that?”
The three of us make for the exit. “I’ve gotta tell the men that you’re all good, Slick. Let ’em know that you’re one of us again, and not to bother you in anyway. You’ve got a few loyal to you anyway, ain’t you? Spike and a couple of the old boys.”
“A few,” I agree, as we walk out into the street. “Don’t know how Clint’s men’ll take it, though.”
“They’ll take it,” Grizzly says. “That’s all that matters.”
Chapter Twenty
Slick
When I see Spike with his head covered in blood and his body twitching, at first I don’t believe what my eyes are telling me. I’ve seen Spike around the club enough times, offering me a supportive smile and sometimes shooting pool with a couple of the older guys. He’s even whispered to me a couple of times that he’d help me escape if I needed it. He’s a good kid. Me and Grizzly stand in the doorway, lookin’ down on him, both of us not knowing what to make of a Rager on his back in the entrance lobby to the clubhouse. After what feels like a damn long time, my paralysis fades and I run to him, kneeling down beside him.
“Spike,” I say. “You alright, kid?”
He grins up at me, dazed out of his mind. “Gotta get those fishies, Slick,” he says, his teeth covered in blood. “Gotta get those fishies ’fore you get to fry ’em.”
“You’ve had a knock to the head, kid,” I tell him. “Wait here. I’ll get some damn ice—or somethin’.”
But when I stand up, I see that Grizzly’s got his gun out. He brings his fingers to his lips and points at the door to the bar. That’s when I notice it: the silence, silence like there never is in a club. When you walk into the clubhouse, you hear glasses and pool balls and men laughing and shouting. You hear swearing and fighting and fists slamming onto tables. You never hear silence, like it’s a fuckin’ library. I take out my gun and follow Grizzly as he approaches the door. The two of us go to either side of the door, crouched against the wall, and then Grizzly holds up his fingers. Three, two, one . . .
We smash into the bar to find half of the men tied up in the corner, Trevor watching over them with a huge machine-gun bigger’n most men’s torsos, staring ’em down, the other half all standing around Clint, who has dragged out Grizzly’s throne-like office chair into the bar and sits in the middle, a gun in his hand, watching the door. The men behind him have guns, too, handguns and sub-machine guns, all of them aimed at me and Grizzly. I see the men loyal to me and Grizzly tied up try and shout and fight when they see us, but they’re gagged and tied arm to arm and then to the floor, like a shackled line of prisoners in the Old West. Grizzly and me ain’t got a choice but to lower our guns. It’s clear Clint has somethin’ to say. Otherwise, we’d be dead right now.
Grizzly barks, “You’re a fuckin’ coward, Clint. A fuckin’ coward.”
“Don’t be so rude,” Clint says, rising to his feet. He’s wearing a spotless white suit and white shoes, with a silver watch. A fuckin’ fop. A fuckin’ dandy. Once again I can’t believe these assholes are following this piece of shit. And once again I have to remind myself that beneath all the showiness, Clint is a violent psychopath.
“What’ve you done?” Grizzly says. “The fuck have you done? Who do you think you are?”
“I am the man with all the guns and all the support—well, all the support which isn’t about to be mowed down by an impressively big gun, that is.”
“You’re a dead man,” Grizzly says. “You’re a fuckin’ dead man.”
Clint just laughs at that. “I fail to see how you came to that conclusion,” he replies. “But you always were slow, weren’t you, Jacob? A big slow fucking oaf that I had to stand beside and watch as you made poor decision after poor decision.”
“What’s this fuckin’ woman offered you?” Grizzly asks, turning to the men who surround the throne. I recognize many of them, all of them in Rager leathers, many of them recent additions to the club—Clint’s additions. “What could a fuckin’ woman like this offer you to betray your club?”
“Just a good reason, Jacob,” Clint says, hefting his
gun. Even his weapon is stylish, a large silver Desert Eagle to match his outfit. The extent that this man’ll go to make an impression shocks me, even now. “These men here care about profit,” he went on, nodding to the men behind him, “and these poor deluded bastards care about loyalty.” He nodded at the tied up men.
“You fucked up with the one in the lobby,” I say. “Meant to kill him, did you? Just wounded him, Clint, you fuckin’ asshole.”
Clint bristles, and then gestures to the men behind him. “Go and get the boy in here.”
I relax. That was what I wanted. In here, at least I can keep an eye on him. I don’t want him out there bleeding and dying with no one to see it. As the men pass by me and Grizzly, I see Grizzly tense up, like he’s about to jump on one of them. Both of ’em are holding sub-machine guns—Uzis—and both of ’em are new, so new they probably hardly even know Grizzly or me, and’d have no problem killing us. Grizzly must think the same thing, ’cause he settles back. Goddamn, but I’m glad Brat went with Heather, and not here with us. The men bring Spike in. I’m glad to see he’s moaning, still alive. It just seems he’s dazed, is all. He makes to fight, even in his dazed state, but I say, “Just let ’em tie you up, kid. They’ll kill you.”
