BIKER’S GIFT

by Claire St. Rose

  Instead of risk being seen, I park my cycle about a block down on a residential street and then head towards the front of the repair shop. Two of his men in perfectly clean overalls look at me suspiciously. They’re hired muscles, I can tell by how they whisper towards one another. And they’re new to this business.

  Already, my haunches are raised. Brandon must think he needs protection. But from what? What’s he hiding from – the Bonebreakers who he apparently doesn’t move dust for or the Disciples who have always protected him in exchange for a cut of the action?

  Behind the two muscles is Brandon, looking through a big black notebook. A red pen makes corrections as he doesn’t even bother to look up at me. As he walks past, I grab hold of his collar and forcibly throw him against the wall of his own shop. The two men don’t have a second to react. I’ve already got a knife to Brandon’ throat as I shout, “Call ‘em off, Brandon! You know you don’t wanna test me. I’m quicker than both of ‘em greenhorns.”

  Brandon looks nervously at the men and then down at the knife against his neck. I push it deeper against his skin, just enough to draw some blood. He lets out a frightened hiss before dismissing the other two. They scurry off towards the back.

  Despite him following my orders, I don’t let Brandon down. I continue to hold him in place with the back of my arm and the knife dangerously close to death. Quietly, I ask him, “Those ain’t Disciples, Brandon! You wanna tell me who you get them from?”

  He stutters, the fear oozing out of him, “They’re nobody! Just some kids I picked up. I’m paying them in my personal supply.”

  “So then why did you get them so suddenly? When I stopped in two weeks ago, business was great, and I didn’t hear no complaints about safety.” Brandon’ stop has been on my route for several years now. I know this place like the back of my hand. So as soon as you're adding new men, guards no less, I can smell the bullshit a mile away.

  “I – I – I just didn’t want to get stuck in the middle of you two. I – I – heard about that kid. Hunny or Dante or something. And I got scared. That’s all! I promise!”

  “Dante? What do you know about Dante?”

  The kid’s been missing for a week now. No one’s heard him, not even his mama and he was a good boy before then, always checking in with family no matter the risk in it. And when Griz’s dealing with moms crying over the phone looking for their son, we know we got problems.

  But Brandon doesn’t answer. He changes the subject, offering to get me my money sooner than our usual pick up time.

  I respond by pushing harder into his chest and cutting farther into his skin with the pinprick of the knife’s edge. “You didn’t answer my fucking question! Where the fuck is Dante?!”

  He stammers again, and I watch as sweat drips down his face and onto his shirt. He squirms uncomfortably beneath me.

  I try it again, this time more direct, “If you don’t tell me where Dante is and what you know, I will burn this whole goddamn place down. You know what happened to Quinto’s Place? That huge fire that destroyed everything in that restaurant? I’ll make it happen again. And believe me that tires and oil burn much faster than quesadillas and tacos.”

  He lets out a gasp of air before screaming, “Fuck! Ugh! I knew I shouldn’t have gotten mixed up with you bastards.” I stare at him impatiently, not losing my eye contact. I didn’t have time to hear regrets. “I heard…I heard from one of my, uh, guys dealing with the Bonebreakers that Dante got caught crossing lines. Shot dead. Body’s in a landfill somewhere.”

  I release him, watching him fall and grab his neck. I fish into the front pocket of my jacket and pull out a cigarette and a lighter. I’m not a smoker, never was, but I need one after hearing that. After taking a few drags, I turn back to Brandon who is eying his desk, clearly plotting something.

  I only have moments before I figure it out. As he makes a dash for it, I run as well, flinging myself over the counter and behind the desk. My hand goes for under the computer station and finds it – the cold hard handle of a pistol. I yank it off of the mount it's on and turn it towards its owner. “Oh Brandon, Brandon, Brandon. You really fucked up this time.”

  He gets down on his knees, his hands at his head. “I was only trying to protect myself. You don’t understand, Noah!”

  “What don’t I understand? That you’re a little pussy of a man who I’m about to kill?”

  “No! Noah! They’d kill me anyway. The Bonebreakers been coming around here for months now. They’ve been terrorizing me, forcing me to sell their shit. I didn’t have a choice! I knew it would come to this eventually.”

  I look at him, his eyes welling with tears. But a flicker of paper to the side of me catches my attention. It’s a picture of him holding a little girl about Opal’s age, probably a granddaughter. It’s in a homemade frame broken in small pieces from our struggle. I give him one last glance before I put the gun back to my face, looking straight at him, just as my daddy taught me in target practice.

  In my head I count 1… 2… 3…And on the 3, I do it. I turn the gun around, using the handle to smack him in the back of the head.

  He falls forward awkwardly before crashing down to his side with the familiar sound of a body thudding up against the cinderblock floors. Blood almost instantly appears near his ear. I kick his body once or twice, looking for life. But he’s motionless, completely out. Using my shirt to cover my prints, I lean down and feel for a pulse. He’s alive by my own mercy.

  The old timers, the 1%ers, they’ll brag about me and some of the crazy shit I’ve done, but they know I’m not the type of guy to kill. That’s for the enforcers. I’d rather destroy lives than take them. It’s more fun that way. And in this case Brandon got lucky that it was me doing the recon and not Big Tusk or even Trigger. Blood and an excuse to shoot were their calling cards.

  I scribble a note on a piece of paper and leave it at his side near where the blood is starting to pool. It’s instructions to call me when he hears from the Bonebreakers again. I end it with a sly and sarcastic, “You can thank me when I pick up the cash on Saturday.”

  I then walk towards the door where the two men are joking around. I sigh to myself over what a fool Brandon had been. These two couldn’t protect their own shit, let alone someone working as a third party motorcycle club drug dealer. It takes them a long, awful moment before they finally turn their attention from whatever card game they’re playing to the man standing in the doorway covered in flecks of fresh blood.

  When they see me, they both leap to their feet in defense. Both slowly walk towards me, unsure how to approach or what they should do next. The taller one has a good four inches on me, but I manage to strike first, punching him in the jaw and sending him landing to the ground just like his boss.

  The second one whimpers and backs off as I crack my knuckles from the first hit. I look at him as I wipe the blood of both men off of my hand with the back of my black shirt. He’s got to be no older than twenty-one. I shake my head in disbelief before I give him my message, “You tell your boss he best call me when he wakes up. And if any Bonebreakers come round here looking for him while he’s out, you call me, too.”

  The boy nods like the top of a bobblehead. His hand is shaking as he stands with his arms up near his face. He watches me go with wide, wondering eyes. I spared him the pain his buddies are going to face when they manage to wake up.

  I take a few steps out the door before realizing something. I walk back to where the body of the car repair shop owner is lying, still unconscious and grab the gun. I empty the cartridge, leaving just one bullet and then I walk back into the break room. The young man is leaning over his friend, checking for signs of life. When he sees me with the gun, he crab walks backwards on his hands, finding a chair to hold onto as he whimpers.

  “If you’re gonna protect someone, you best not act like that.” I place the gun towards him and kick it away with my feet. “That’s got one bullet. If the Bonebreakers act up, you have my permission to u
se it. Look ‘em in the eye, though. You don’t wanna make it too messy in the cleanup.”

  I walk quickly back towards my bike, hop on, and hit the pavement towards home. This time, I’m speeding faster through the residential streets, not even bothering with the highway. The Disciples are gonna want to know what happened to Dante. Not only that, they’re gonna wanna make plans.

  Chapter 8 FAYE

  “He did what ?!” The look on Sherri’s face is one of complete disbelief. She certainly wasn’t a prude, but when I told her what Noah Cruz did to me in my own classroom, even she couldn’t contain herself. “And you let him do that? I mean, this wasn’t forced was it? Did he hurt you?”

  I run to her side, reassuring her I’m okay. “No, no. It wasn’t forced at all. I mean, we were both flirting and one thing led to another. I didn’t ask him to do it, but I didn’t stop him either. And by the time he was going down on me, I was all in.”

  “Jesus Christ, Faye. I mean, I know we’ve partied enough before, but Jesus Christ! I never knew you were so…” she trails off, her eyes wide, searching. I'm actually a little impressed with myself: I’ve managed to shock the unshockable Sherri.

  But I get where she’s coming from. I haven’t had a guy in my life in a year, not since Denny and I broke up. And even then, he broke up with me because he thought I was too vanilla. He was trying new flavors even when we were talking about getting engaged. But when the big moment came, it was the exact opposite of what I thought it would be. Instead of a ring, I got a return of my house key and a goodbye forever.

  Since that day, I’ve been single in bed. I haven’t even been into pleasuring myself. It just wasn’t my thing. After a while, I really didn’t miss it. I even stopped looking for that guy who would turn this all around. Who needed to deal with the drama, the commitment, the messiness of it all? I learned quickly that the only person I could trust and depend on to make me happy was myself.

  I look down at the paper he gave me. I haven’t set it down since. It’s just been crumpled in my hand, turned over and over again as if something new would write itself on it. I turn back towards Sherri, “Here’s the thing – he wants me to meet with him tonight.”

  “You’re kidding me!” She leaps to her feet excitedly. Obviously being an heiress has made her life so boring that me getting a little action is completely thrilling. “What are you gonna wear? Or, more importantly, what are you not gonna wear?”

  I give her a smile before returning to my reason for telling her all this in the first place, “Do you think I really should go over there? I mean, this is a father of one of my students. If I got caught, I would be fired. It’s in the rule book and everything.”

  I’m not a rule breaker. In fact, I’m the one that usually volunteers to make the rulebook! I volunteer for clubs that pick the hall monitors or the after school program for those who want to participate in student council. The idea of getting caught at a parent’s house after school hours or, worse, getting caught being intimate with him, would destroy not only my career but also my reputation! I couldn’t risk that.

  “Are you seriously worried about being caught? What parent is gonna go over to a motorcycle clubhouse late at night, see you and him together, and then get the nerve up to report it to Ms. Western?”

  Sherri’s right. Where Opal lives, no parent would dare to go. At least not the type of parent who would actually rat me out. If I were going to where my rich students lived with the parent’s all in my business, then I might have issues. But the whole clubhouse thing presents an entirely different issue…

  “Okay, but what about this clubhouse thing? Do you know what they do there? Drugs, sex, violence… do you think it’s safe?”

  Sherri pauses. I’ve got her there. Neither of us are exactly bad girls, though Sherri runs a bit wilder. Money allows her to do that. But even she would hesitate if some burly motorcycle man invited her back to his seedy den of illegal activity. However, she seems to have a change of heart as she looks at me with a chipper, self-satisfied grin, “Bring your pepper spray and phone. If you get into trouble, text me the number 8, and I’ll be there in seconds flat. Or, I’ll call the police. Problem solved!”

  I can’t argue with that. And really, I don’t want to. After Noah left me wanting on that desk, that build up hadn’t disappeared. It has only grown. I want to finish it off and to see what it is like to cross over to the dark side. I’ve gotten a taste of wild, and I want the full bite no matter the danger ahead.

  I head up to my room and change into the sexiest, yet not desperate outfit I can find. I don’t want to look like I want this, and I still want to come off as a professional. After all, he did say that he wanted to discuss Opal’s progress. That’s reason enough to pick a knee length dress. But his magic tongue is the reason it’s strapless with a sweetheart neckline. His fingers dictate my need for ruby red lips and my hair tied back in a tight ponytail.

  With Sherri’s approval, I’m off. The drive takes me to a part of Washington City that I have yet to venture. No streetlights, no one walking on the street. The houses are either boarded up or sealed shut with windows and doors with multiple locks. I park my car under the one dim, flickering light next to an ancient phone booth and press the lock button.

  Noah is waiting for me at the front door. He leans against the wooden, chipped frame, his arms crossed coolly in front of his chest. He’s still got that tight black t-shirt and dark jeans on from earlier today.

  “You’re early, you know.” I can’t tell by the tone of his voice if he’s angry or not. Then again, he’s a hard guy to read even when he’s being obvious. His body language is just always steamed.

  I try to make a joke, “To be early is to be on time. To be on time is to be late. To be late is to be—”

  “Dead.” He laughs almost manically, “My dad used to say that when I showed up five minutes after a meeting had started.”

  “A meeting? A family business?”

  “Something like that.”

  Noah ushers me inside to a small front room where a few men in black leather jackets and huge motorcycle boots are playing cards loudly. The smell of smoke fills the room almost instantly when Noah closes it behind me, sealing me in. Behind the men are two women, cleaning up beer cans and bottles discarded on the floors and couches. Compared to them in their tight jean shorts and cut off tops, I feel so out of place. Yet no one even takes notice of me.

  I follow Noah back towards a kitchen where Opal is scribbling on a drawing notepad. When she sees me, her eyes light up. She holds up her notebook proudly for me to see, “Miss Harvey! Check this out!”

  I study the drawing she’s done. It’s of a sunset and an open road. In the center is a motorcycle riding towards it. The drawing itself is excellent, way advanced for her age. It has perfect shading and intricate lines. I’m impressed. “This is amazing, Opal!” I say earnestly, “I had no idea you were such a great artist!”

  “Thanks! Dad got me these pencils and drawing pads for Christmas last year. It’s what the pros use!” She looks up at Noah with a wide smile. This is the first time I’ve seen her look at him with anything but fear. And to see her do it here, in this run down house full of men screaming and drinking, is way out of what I'd expected.

  Noah kneads her shoulders with his hands and then says, “How about you take that upstairs? Miss Harvey and I have got some talking to do.”

  Opal obediently leaves, taking her drawings with her up the stairs to where I assume her bedroom is. I watch her walk away, stepping over discarded shirts and bottles. Noah notices my disapproving look and adds defensively, “I know this ain’t what you teachers want to see, but it’s our reality.”

  “It’s, uh, different. But I don’t usually make house calls, Noah.”

  “Something tells me someone like you doesn’t do any type of house call…”

  I get his implication almost immediately. I’m surprised at how quickly he can turn that smooth charm on. He’s an easy, horrible flirt. But
I take the bait. “I make enough house calls.”

  “Really? When’s the last time you did one?” He sits down at the table, and I join him in the seat across from him.

  Defensively, I respond, “It’s been awhile, okay? But I made them.”

  He leans back, his arms still crossed as he studies me. After a long moment, he leans over and picks up Opal’s backpack. Fishing for a notebook, he pulls a black one out and hands it to me, “My girl’s smart, you know. And she doesn’t deserve to be in remedial classes. Maybe she’s bored and acting up because you don’t challenge her enough.”

  It’s a fair point. And he has the evidence. The notebook is full of perfect spelling and English tests. My handwriting marks them all. “Opal is brilliant, a hard worker, a creative mind. But she still struggles. I don’t see any social studies tests in here. If you had those, you’d see that she's failing to pick up on important facts and figures that is important for junior high.”