by Cherise West
Strutting across the parking lot with briefcase in hand, I unlock my phone, pressing it to my ear. A fake phone call, I’ve found, is one of the best defenses against any sort of malfeasance. Or, maybe it’s not, and I’ve just gotten lucky, but it calms my fears down a little. Instead of a conversation though, I click on my iPhone’s voice recognition and whisper quietly into the receiver.
What can I help you with? the cheery robotic voice asks.
“Siri, look up prices for pepper spray, please,” I murmur.
Sure! I found seventeen-hundred results for pepper spray prices, near you, the phone chirps. I had the foresight to park my car under the only bright lamppost in the whole parking lot this time; after a cloudy day the sun has fallen quick, leaving the mess of smokestacks and stinking industry buried early in the cover of night. A cool mist begins to fall, covering my loose bun in dew; arriving at my car I pocket my phone, a steady hand clicking the doors unlocked and pulling the handle.
Slam! With the door pulled secure behind me, I sigh in relief. Simple enough. I’m grateful. Two murder cases, neither of them tied to the Wardogs, have Scott and I bogged down in paperwork and strung to the ends of our emotions. I’ve had nightmares about the crimes, not to mention the terrified, sitting-up-in-bed terror anytime someone comes around the corner loud enough for me to mistake it for a motorcycle engine. All told, though, I’d say I’m handling it pretty well. Right?
I start the car up, glancing into my rearview. I don’t expect to see anything… so when a flash of reflected light catches the corner of my eye, I double take to get a better look. Focusing on my rearview, I see a chrome pipe, glinting silvery in the moonlight. Straining, I first take it to be a tailpipe or a truck’s bumper, but when I hear that characteristic revv-revv, whirrrr I shudder and breathe in. Rolling the window down, I look back - and see nothing, aside from a trail of exhaust fumes whirling through the rain. Don’t panic, Mara. Doesn’t mean anything.
Putting the car in reverse, I pull out of my spot; the rain begins to pick up, and I roll my window down to stop a steady stream of water from sloshing into my lap. Wipers on, traffic ahead of me as I pull out becomes a messy, damp blur of reds and yellows and moist fumes. I follow the main roads, signaling my turns cautiously. I twist between crowded roadways, wipers throwing sheets and sheets of intense rain away from my windshield. The water gets heavier and my breathing follows along when I hear a distinct, loud revving behind me. My eyes snap to the rearview, but I can’t see anything, aside from the yellow glow of a single headlight, blurred in the rain.
It’s nothing, Mara. There’s thousands of bikers in Jersey. Not all of them are Wardogs. I shrug, pushing through the rain, up to another stoplight. The sound gets louder. A glance behind and I see two glaring yellow headlights now. My pulse picks up. I turn right; they follow. Gaining speed on a main thoroughfare, mostly desolate, I pull left and they follow. Three now; another glance backs reveals another light, the engine hum louder and harder. Finally hitting the freeway, I breathe out sharply, confident I’m free of any pursuers.
Instead, the lights get worse. Joining three headlights pouring through the rain, come three more; all of them revving in sync, forming a wall behind my Honda, keeping pace with me. I hit the gas, blowing past the only other car on the road; the sea of headlights swerves to follow. My knuckles tighten on the wheel. I pull off to the left; they follow. To the right, they follow. I exit the freeway, down onto an old industrial road, and they follow. Faster now; closer now. I pick up speed and they follow; when I dip off a side route, the rain practically blinding me. I hate driving fast in the rain and my wheels squeal with each wild turn but the panic pushes me faster. Another turn, and two more headlights join in. Now, cranking their engines, I hear above the patter of raindrops on my car a howling - a distinct, bestial holler, the call of the Roarin’ Wardogs.
HOO! HOO! HOO! I breathe heavily now, sweat on my brow, a pained whimper in my throat. I turn down a side street and, no longer just pacing me, they roll up on both sides, their holler louder than the rumbling storm. Tears of terror in my eyes I swing, but they follow; I start to hear a loud THUMP, THUMP, THUMP through my car. Looking in my rearview, two of the Wardogs, their faces garbed in a concealing scarf, pound at the body of my Honda with baseball bats; each THUMP comes and my heart pumps, adrenaline like acid in my blood. Sobbing, I pick up speed; they follow. The THUMPS grow louder; now three of them, joining together, beating out a rhythm in the rain against my car. I spin to turn and nearly throw one of them off the bike; the thumping responds with anger, growing louder, drowning out the sound of thunder rolling overhead. I cut through a tight corridor. Two of the bikers inch up, flanking my car, staring at me through the windows. Their faces are covered and their heads helmeted but I could recognize Butcher and Lefty Pete’s hate-filled eyes anywhere. Swinging their bats around in anticipation, through the fog and the pouring droplets I see both of them warming up for a hard swing against my windows. My shoulders lift with each breath; I’m going to hyperventilate, the panic flooding my entire brain.
The howling hits a fever pitch. The bats swing in wide arcs, their wielders staring me down. I bury my foot against the gas pedal, pushing the engine to its limits, the Honda hurdling through the alleyway, tires squealing.
Just as the two pull back to crash their weapons through my windows, they glance ahead. The roar of a motorcycle startles the two of them, and the Wardogs howl starts to die away. The swarm of murky headlights crowded around my Honda recedes; with one last exchange of evil eyes, the two attackers at my windows decelerate, vanishing behind me. Looking ahead, I see a bike coming the opposite direction; I yelp, fearing a collision, but the motorcycle veers to one side of my Honda, cutting through the receding crew of Wardogs on my tail.
Emerging from the alleyway, I pull to the side of the road, throwing my car into park. The tears come immediately; tears of terror, an explosion of pent-up emotion let loose. I scream, banging my fists against the steering wheel, crying out full of hate; full of fear. Why are they doing this to me? What can I do? Anger as visceral in my blood as dread, I watch my rearview mirror closely; I see a bike emerge from the alleyway, zooming through sheets of rain and parking behind me. My eyes full of tears and rage, I grab for the ice scraper beneath my passenger seat, the only remotely weapon-shaped thing in my car. Throwing the door open, I storm out; the rain meets my clothes immediately, soaking into my skin, cold and sharp, like daggers of ice falling onto every inch of me. Gripping the ice scraper with both hands, I shriek at the phantom cyclist, my entire body shaking.
“What do you want?! Leave me alone!” I howl. “Who are you?!” I hear the biker laugh. I’m sure I look ridiculous. A woman with a soaked suit-jacket thrown over her shoulders, swinging an ice scraper in a torrential downpour.
“Get back in your car, you maniac,” a muffled voice comes from under a face-concealing helmet. His bike gurgles and rumbles; I vaguely recognize the chrome and the cherry-red color of the body panels, my eyes twisting skeptically.
“Who are you? What do you want with me?” I demand.
“I told you to drive away, forget about this,” the muffled man responds.
“No! I’m not going anywhere,” I shout. Shoulders dropping into a sigh, the man pushes out his kickstand, getting off the bike. Wary, I swing the ice scraper in his direction. “Stay back! I’ll… I’ll crack your head open,” I threaten, breathing hard.
“I’m wearing a helmet,” he scoffs. “Here, look. Fine.” Unlatching the buckle from beneath, the man pulls his helmet off. I grit my teeth. Rain washing over his leather jacket and now droplets crashing into his raven hair, Tony St. James holds his hands up defensively. “See? Happy?”
“Wh-what?!” I shout at him. “You… why did you do that? Why did you have them chase me through the city? Just so you could call them off? Be some kind of hero? What kind of a sick joke is this?!”
“I told you to get back in your car and drive off. I didn’t want you to know w
ho I am,” he exhales, irritated.
“Listen, asshole, your friends scared me to death! I thought I was going to die! And you just pull through, and suddenly they stop following me?! What kind of stupid game is this?”
“It’s not a game. Just get back in your car and go home,” he scoffs, getting back onto his bike.
“No!” I shout. “You’re going to call them off, for good, right now!” I demand.
“Listen, lady,” he retorts angrily, “I’m giving you an opportunity I don’t give most snotty lapdogs like you. Get in your car, and go,” he hisses. “You don’t know a thing about me, or what you’re talking about.”
“I know you’re in charge of the Wardogs, and Billy Boy, and I want this to stop,” I huff, the rain starting to soak through to my skin, bringing shivers to my spine, my jaw chattering.
“You don’t know anything,” he scoffs.
“Then why else would you be here?!” I exclaim.
“To make sure my fucking crew doesn’t do anything phenomenally STUPID,” he shouts back at me, getting up off his bike again. He pushes in closer, and though I hold the ice scraper tight, ready to swing, I shudder nervously instead, holding off. “To make sure you don’t have anything to sue us over, make sure they don’t do anything other than make a pretty little dent in your pretty little car, okay, Ms. Lewis?” he snarls, getting close to me. Wet, cold, alone, scared, and tired, I can’t stop myself from just crying; sobbing, ugly sobbing, like a miserable child. I try to piece together words, but all that comes out is a series of weak, mewling cries.
“Jesus,” he exhales deeply, palm to his forehead. “For fuck’s sake. Now you’re a mess. Why didn’t you just fucking listen to me the first time?”
“I can’t deal with the fear,” I sniffle. He shakes his head.
“Fuck… fuck,” he exclaims, frustrated. “Here,” he groans, cradling an arm across my shoulders, pushing me back towards my car. “Just… god. Come on.” I fall back into my driver’s seat, letting the ice scraper clang onto the floor. The passenger’s side door opens, and the next thing I know, Tony is in my car.
“Wh… where, what do you want?”
“To go,” he shrugs.
“Go where?”
“I don’t know, fuck,” he blurts. “I don’t care. Go around the corner, up here. Let’s get a drink, or something.”
“Okay.”
Chapter 7
“This place? This is the place you wanted to take me?” I glance out through the rain, beginning to slow in it patter against my windshield, hearing grungy heavy metal music, hogs of chrome and steel huddling beneath an overhang, crude murals sprayed across dirty brick walls. ‘XKZ’, I read through the rain; not the sort of place I’d ever expect to find myself, though at the same time I can be thankful I won’t find any Lukas Porters or Dolph Jacksons in here. That, at least, would give me a nice change of pace.
“I didn’t want to take you anywhere,” Tony grunts, arms crossed. “But I feel responsible. And I don’t want you catching flu and getting pissed off at my Wardogs about it. You don’t have to go anywhere,” he dismisses me.
“So charming,” I exhale in annoyance. “Do you treat all your dates this way?”
“You’re not my date, nor would you ever be,” he’s quick to respond. “But even if you were, any date I met swinging an ice scraper at me in the rain would warrant the same sort of treatment.”
“Your men had just been chasing me up the street, trying to kill me,” I snarl, pulling into a park spot on the back side of this… bar, I guess it is. I can hear the thump of the rumbling guitars and rumbling engines around the corner. The sound still shakes my heart; that motorcycle sputter, brings to mind Billy Boy’s face. I shut the car off, freezing deadly still.
“What’s your problem?” Tony watches me.
“I don’t… I mean,” I swallow, “motorcycles. They make me. Nervous.”
“Fine, don’t come in, then,” Tony huffs, pushing open the passenger door and trudging through the rain towards the doors. He marches through puddles, not even waiting for me. What the hell? Having a few words to share with him, I hastily follow; the first step out of my car lands my feet deep into a heavy puddle of rainwater, droplets still falling across my already dampened clothes. Scowling, I strut carefully along the uneven pavement, catching up to his big ego and bad attitude.
“Hey! You can’t just leave me—”
“Did I?” he barks, rounding the corner. Motorcycles spread along the front patio to keep them dry, I don’t see windows; just a pair of scuffed wooden doors amid the murals of skulls and fire and sex.
“I just don’t want to walk into a place like this by myself,” I admit hesitantly.
“Why? You always judge books by their cover?” he looks back at me, cocky.
“No,” I seethe, “I’m judging you by the cover, and by the contents, and my judgment says you’re a dick,” I exhale, my voice shaky.
“This always how you treat your dates?” He mocks my question, pulling open the creaky wooden door into the dive bar.
“Oh, so now you are my date?” I taunt.
“You’d never be so lucky,” he scoffs arrogantly, entering.
“Oh yeah, sure, I’d kill to be a part of your no doubt endless list of crassly meaningless one-night conquests,” I deride. Following behind him, the pump of the music practically deafens me; cigarette smoke and the stench of whiskey breath assault my nostrils. The lights, dim enough that they may as well not even be on, do little to help me navigate the place, its floor painted over black, no doubt to hide years of scuffs and scratches and the occasional bloodstain from a nasty barfight. Tony glances over his shoulder to make sure I’m still with him, dragging me through crowds of chubby old men in leather jackets covered in patches and lettering, always that same, medieval-looking font. Each of them gawk as I pass, murmurs passing through the crowd of wary eyes. God, what was I thinking? He must be setting me up for… something.
Finally I breathe a gasp of relief when Tony leads me to a booth nestled in the corner of the bar. We slide into opposite sides and, eyes searching the crowd, I breathe harder in quiet fear.
“You didn’t tell me you were taking me to a biker bar,” I whisper. Or, yell more like, but it’s the best whisper I can offer over the pump of blasting guitar music.
“What, all the bikes outside didn’t clue you in?” he snarks.
“Smart guy,” I shake my head. “Half the people in here probably want me dead.”
“You’re a prosecutor. I’d say the ratio of people who want to kill you is probably worse every day in that courtroom than it is here,” he surmises cruelly. Honestly, he might be right, though I hadn’t thought of it that way. “Now, what do you want to drink? Or are you just going to go back out into the rain?”
“Drink? Oh,” I swallow. I haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. Anything with alcohol in it right now is likely to punch me into a drunken stupor pretty quick, so I think better of it. “Just… I don’t know, a… water?” Tony rolls his eyes.
“You come to a bar, and you want water,” he ridicules me. “I’m not going to the bar to get you water. There’s plenty of that outside. You’re already covered in it.”
“Fine, I don’t know, a seltzer?” I shrug obstinately.
“Something with alcohol in it, Jesus Christ,” he sighs.
“I don’t know what they have here!” I exclaim. “A cosmo?”
“Cosmos. Me, going to the bar, ordering a cosmo. A thousand options, and you picked the one worse than me going to the bar and ordering you water,” he grouses.
“I don’t care, damn, just give me some liquor,” I blurt. He watches me for a long moment, his cocky, spiteful expression shifting to faint amusement.
“I thought you wanted water,” he jibes.
“Fuck you!” I shout back, though it forces a smile from me. He disappears into the crowd, and without him looming over, my nerves immediately start up. I breathe in and out, slowly, delibe
rately, trying not to draw any kind of attention. I slip my phone from my inside jacket pocket, wiping droplets of dew from the screen. A message from Scott; strange to be thinking about him, after the day I’ve had. Scott always drops his suitcase in the courthouse by 8 in the morning and picks it up to leave promptly at five in the evening; no overtime, long nights; no worry lingering in the back of his head as he wanders into the streets.
Lewis. Prelim hearing tomorrow on Abruzzi case. Bring your A game this time. As much as you enjoy them. No media circuses this time please.
I exhale sharply, disgust twitching at my lip. Hasn’t supported my case against the Wardogs even one step of the way; I don’t even know that he’s trusted me to just do my job since the office hired me. He gives me the scraps and he vacuums up all the easy cases, leaving the backbreaking work to me. You know what, screw him. Maybe I should drink myself stupid tonight. Show up to court anyway, and do his job better than he can do it.
Hoping for something to laugh at, maybe Lukas being an idiot, I click open my Facebook app. Scrolling down the feed, I look for Lukas’s latest stupidity; instead, I find party pictures. Normally not a problem but they’re from his friend Maria’s networking mixer, the one Dealy & Webb holds every year.
Of course, then I see Josh, plastered over every one of them. His smarmy grin, fake tan; his arm thrown over the secretary he dumped me for. Clicking my phone locked, I push it away, sighing deeply. Screw him, too. Screw all of them, honestly. Maybe Tony’s right. I should get a real drink. I hope he brings me one, because I’m dying to bury Josh and Scott and everything down into some deep ditch for at least one night.
“Here,” his smoky tone breaks harshly into my malaise; Tony slides a glass of brownish liquid to me, dropping into the booth with one of his own. “Drink it.”
“What is it?” I question.
