Guess it was a bad idea to insult him, Jen thought. I wonder what he’ll say to me at the shop tomorrow. Will he be a dick?
If Seth decided to be a dick it was because he had every right to be. It wasn’t often that, after you gave someone the lay of their life, they turned around and called you a whore to your face. Not to mention Seth had hung out at the bar with her all night and walked her home because he was obviously attracted to her and might even be sweet on her. The more she thought about it the more she felt like a rancid bag of shit. She wanted to text him and say sorry but she didn’t have his number.
Jen’s mind fell quiet as slumber engulfed her like the warm waves of a far off ocean.
Chapter Four
The next day she woke up groggy with the bitter bite of a hangover just behind her eyes. At first she wondered where she was at, and then she remembered how she had come back to Seth’s place with him the night before. Jen shook her head as she thought about how mad someone had to be to storm out of their own house and leave the person they had brought home there; or how gracious that person was to not kick the person who had just gone out of their way to insult them out on their ass.
After checking to make sure she hadn’t left anything and making sure the door would lock behind her Jen headed back to the Freemont, hoping that her car hadn’t been towed. She wasn’t really sure how strict bar owners were about that sort of thing on this side of town, and dreaded the thought of having to pay for a cab ride home. When she got back to the bar she found her car waiting for just as she had left it.
When she got back to her place she jumped in the shower, at something quick, threw on some clothes and headed back out the door to her car to make it to the tattoo parlor before it closed. As she headed down Cottage Grove Avenue, the street that ran by her place and then went a dozen or so blocks before going by the parlor, she realized that she’d be getting to the shop just as it was closing. Hopefully Seth would still be there. Jen wondered if he would be angry at her, if they even still would be able to do business together.
“If I’d known he was the protection guy I wouldn’t have fucked him,” Jen said to herself as she drove.
But she knew it was lie right after it left her mouth. She had needed a good, deep dicking. Thankful she had gotten it and Seth had been a most gracious partner. As she parked behind the shop and got out of her car she wondered if he would be just as gracious now, after the fact, after she had been an asshole and insulted him to his face last night. Jen wondered why she thought she would be able to slip the wool over someone as intelligent as Seth’s eyes and make him actually believe that she had thought him an escort. Because for a second, just before the insult, she had thought that he would be hurt by the words, not the intention behind the words.
Jen got out of her car and made her way toward the shop. The back door had an “Open” sign on it, with the words “Sacred Diamond” painted on its glass with some decorative pin striping around it. The pin striping was good, Jen noticed, although in some places it looked a little rushed and in others it looked as if the weight of the lines were too thick, as if the artist had tarried too long. When she walked through the door a chime sounded and she found herself in a small room with a couch, a computer, paintings and pictures hung on the walls. There was a glass counter on which the computer rested, and behind it was Seth, clicking with the mouse while his eyes were trained on the screen. After a few moments he glanced at her.
“About time,” Seth said. “Although I guess it’s better that you come late so we don’t have customers.”
Jen tried to manage a weak smile but faltered and wasn’t sure what crossed her face in its place. “Follow me,” Seth said as he turned and walked down a hallway behind him.
Sacred Diamond was a nice tattoo parlor, with high end art hung on every available inch of wall. There were several small rooms connected to the hallway: one for artists to draw, a bathroom, a room to sterilize needles and equipment, and yet another for their jackets and what appeared to be miscellaneous. Although the air of the décor was friendly, there were also several human skulls on display in class cases at head level. The hallway was short and opened up into the main room where everyone tattooed.
There were four chairs spread out along a counter that spanned the right wall. Each chair had a small cabinet above it where Jen assumed the ink they used was kept, along with other supplies. As she surveyed the room, she noticed something looming to her left. As she turned an enormous shrine filled her vision composed of hundreds of Jesus figurines in various poses, mostly praying and holding their arms wide in acceptance.
“Whoa,” Jen said.
“You like my shop?” a voice asked.
Jen turned to look towards the front of the shop and saw Seth standing there with four men lounging around him on the sofas meant for customers waiting for their tattoos.
“It’s very nice,” Jen said.
“Well thank you,” a man of medium height and slight build said. “I built it myself. Well, with some help. But I was the designer.”
“And what is your name?” Jen asked.
“You first, lady,” the man said. “This is my shop.”
“My name is Jen,” she said.
The man squinted through his glasses as if the letters J E N had just materialized above her head and he was trying to figure out if he believed them.
“Well, hello, Jen,” the man said with smile. “My name is Mike Diamond.”
“Is the shop named after you?” Jen asked.
“You might say that,” Mike said, giving her an answer that wasn’t one. “Seth is my apprentice and he says that you have some problems that we could help you with. Well, it’s up to me to decide whether or not we’ll be helping you or telling you to hit the bricks. So why don’t you fill us on everything. Don’t take too long though, just give us the main points.”
As the five men listened, Jen outlined what had happened at her Laundromat. When she got to the part where she broke his neck with a kick all of them looked at her with wide eyes. Jen went on to explain how, after a class, she had gone back to her office and found the message written on the wall. She finished up explaining as best she could, telling them how much the Tae Kwon Do center meant to her and how she had no intentions of selling it to a bunch of thugs.
“And who are these thugs, exactly?” Mike asked.
“They said they were with the Irish Mafia,” she replied.
“You know, I’ve heard of something like this happening before in Kansas City,” Mike said.
“What happened to that center?” Jen asked.
“It closed down because the mob kept sending goons to fuck with the owner,” Mike said. “I don’t think that guy killed anyone though.”
The room fell silent for a few moments. Each of the five men was either starring at the ground, their hands, or the ceiling. They all seemed pensive but none of them were afraid.
“So what do you guys think?” Jen asked.
“Well, you realize we don’t work for free,” Mike said.
“But of course,” Jen said.
“So there will be a fee for our ‘services,’” Seth said while making quotations marks around the word services with his fingers, obviously referring to her jab at him the night before. “Are you sure you can afford us. We’re like high profile escorts but not.”
Jen tried to keep from looking scared, or looking like she desperately wanted to go back in time and fix what she had done last night. All she wanted to do was unsay it and tell Seth that she really appreciated what he had done for her last night. But she couldn’t. And try as she might she couldn’t keep the look of fear off her face, as was made evident by the way the other four men who weren’t Seth started shifting uncomfortably in their seats and looking around the room as if desperately trying to find some way to escape the awkward silence.
“Anyway,” Mike said, “I should probably introduce you to everyone. I’m Mike, as we just established, and you already know Seth
.”
Mike gestured toward a Mexican man in his mid thirties with a stocky build, thick beard.
"This is Nate,” Mike said.
“Hey, I’m Nate,” the man said with a smirk.
“This is Wizard,” Mike said gesturing at a long hair and a thick beard wearing a Skeleton Witch band shirt.
“I’m the Mother Fucking Wizard,” the man said.
“This is Earl,” Mike said.
The man named Earl just looked at her without saying anything. Earl appeared to be an aging biker who wore stylish clothes. His boots had green soles and the ass of his pants was bedazzled.
All of the men were heavily tattooed, so much so that it was hard to tell where one tattoo began and the other ended. Jen gave up trying to figure out what ink splotch was what and instead drew her mind back to the situation at hand.
“So you guys are all ex-military?” she asked.
“Not quite,” Seth said, “But some of us are. I am. Nate is. Earl as well. Wiz is a Wizard so there’s that.”
Seth paused to laugh at his own joke, then coughed, embarrassed that no one had laughed before continuing.
“We’ve been doing this for awhile actually, so please don’t think we are new to the whole protection game. What we plan on doing with this one is fairly simple actually,” Seth said.
“And what’s that?” Jen asked.
“Well we don’t know exactly, but we know it’s going to be simple,” Seth said.
Jen looked form man to man before responding.
“That doesn’t really tell me anything,” she said.
“Well, be that as it may, it’s very important that you play ball, here,” Mike said. “You can’t do this on your own, if you could you would have already. Am I correct?”
“Yes,” Jen said, sounding unsure.
“Do you think they have you under surveillance?” Nate asked. “Or do you think they are putting anything in your water?”
“What?” Jen asked in an alarmed voice.
“You’ll have to forgive my friend Nate,” Mike said. “He also thinks the government is watching our every move.”
“But aren’t they?” Jen asked. “I thought they were.”
“I guess he was right about that one, but that’s beside the point,” Mike said.
“What is the point?” Jen asked.
“Point being: We’re hired,” Seth declared with a note satisfaction ringing through his voice.
“Hired?” Jen said. “I don’t even know how much you guys cost or what you plan to do? How can you say you are hired?”
“Didn’t we already go over how you need help and can’t do this yourself or you would have?” Mike said.
“Well, yes,” Jen said. “But I need to know what you guys are going to do and how much it will cost me.”
The one Mike had called Wizard lifted his hands, palms outward, and spoke with a friendly smile on his face.
“No need to get distraught,” he said. “We just need to formulate a plan. All right?”
“Of course,” Jen said.
“You’ll need to meet with them,” Earl said, speaking for the first time.
And so the discussion launched. Generally, all of them agreed that the only reason they wouldn’t want her to have a meeting with the mob would to be to keep her identity a secret, but since the mob already knew not only who she was but where she worked and most likely where she lived, those reasons weren’t there anymore. Now what they needed was to make contact with the mob so that had an idea of who they were dealing with.
“It isn’t going to be enough to kill a couple of flunkies, as you already have figured out. That isn’t going to stop them,” Seth explained. “We need some kind of leverage against the people near the top of the hierarchy if we want to get to any kind of real solution, like a truce, that could last for any amount of time.”
Jen sat on one of the couches thinking quietly.
“What is your group’s name, anyway?” she asked.
“We don’t really have one, but if you need to call us something you can call us the Knights Templar after those crazy religious nuts back in the day,” Mike said.
“I’m not sure I’m familiar with them,” Jen said.
“Really?” Nate said in an incredulous voice.
“Yes,” Jen said with an irritated twitch of her eyebrow. “Fucking really. Someone want to explain?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Earl said, “Let’s not get at each other’s throats. I can explain. The Knights Templar were a group of knights back in the day who would go and do what they believed to be the will of God, using force most of the time, but sometimes using persuasion.”
“What happened to them?” Jen asked. “Why aren’t they around today?”
“Are you really asking why mother fuckers that used to fight with swords aren’t around today?” Nate said.
Before Jen could fire back Earl spoke again.
“They got wiped out by the Vatican,” Earl said. “Or so rumors say. No one is really sure what happened to the Knights Templar. They went from being a feared group of holy warriors to disappearing overnight. The reason some people think the Vatican had something to do with it is the speculation that the Pope feared the rising role of the Knights and thusly had them squashed.”
“Why would he do that?” Jen asked.
Nate snorted.
“Because back in the day, and arguably still, the Vatican called the shots via the Pope,” Seth said. “And anything that could possibly have stood in the way was destroyed before it had the chance to. Kind of like how we are over in Iraq and Afghanistan still even though neither of those countries have done shit to us. We are there simply because they could, potentially, be a breeding ground for supposed terrorists.”
“Are you forgetting about 9/11?” Jen asked.
Everyone in the room looked at her with wide eyes.
“I think we need to get back on topic,” Seth said quickly. “And besides, most of the people that hijacked the planes on 9/11 were Saudi Arabian. Just sayin’. But anyway.”
Wizard stood up and looked at Jen.
“What we are going to need from you is fairly simple. Instead of killing the next guy they send to talk to you, because there will be another messenger, try talking instead of violence. I know it might seem like we are somehow feeding into the mob’s tactics but believe me, if you keep putting their dudes in the dirt it won’t be long until they do the same to you,” Wizard said.
Jen sat stunned for a few moments.
“Well, yes, I guess I already knew that,” she said. “I guess it was obvious.”
“God damn right it is,” Earl said. “I’m not saying that you’ve done the wrong thing up to now, I’m just saying that you really need to listen to us from here on out.”
“All right,” Jen agreed. “From here on out I’ll listen. So what do you want me to do exactly? I get I need to actually communicate with the mob’s messengers, but give me more details.”
“They are going to want to set up some kind of sit down talk,” Mike said. “I know that might sound a little bit weird. Think of it like a kangaroo court. People like to dress up lies as reality and parade them around for the world to see. In this case they are going to want you to meet at some kind of restaurant or bar. If they let you choose, pick one that is close to the shop so we have home field advantage.”
“Close to the shop,” Jen said. “Why does it matter?”
“We are probably going to at least take pictures of the meeting, if not film them. If we can. This might not be possible though, but in a perfect world it would be possible,” Seth said.
“In a perfect world people wouldn’t be trying to force me out of my business!” Jen said.
“For sure,” Mike said. “But the world we live in is one that is very hard to escape.”
“You can escape it?” Jen asked.
“Death,” was all Nate said. “Death is the only escape.”
“What about sleep,” Wizar
d said.
“Sleep is a short death, and death a long sleep,” Nate replied. “Or so the saying goes.”
With that the meeting broke. Jen felt a little bit better knowing that the five men would somehow be helping her even if they didn’t really know yet what exactly was going to happen. Before she left, Jen remembered something.
“Hey,” Jen said. “What exactly are you guys charging me?”
The other men were still at the front of the shop; only Mike had walked with her to the back door of his shop to let her out.
“Well, it was going to cost several tens of thousands of dollars,” Mike said. “But Seth vouched for you so instead we all want free passes to your center for life.”
Jen was so shocked her jaw dropped open and hung there.
“Are you serious?” she said. “You guys are going to help me for free?”
“Well, if you want to call it free,” Mike said. “I plan on becoming a fucking Kung Fu master at your school.”
Mike’s face broke into an easy smile as he opened the door and let Jen out. She walked to her car and got in, carefully backing up in the parking lot made busy by the nearby Synagogue and theater. She had just shifted her car into drive and was about to start pressing the gas pedal when she saw Mike running out of the back of the shop, waving at her.
“Here is Seth’s number,” Mike said handing her a piece of paper. “He’s always on his phone so if you text him he’ll answer for sure.”
When she got home she couldn’t wait to take a shower and go to bed. Before she passed out she realized that she needed to text Seth so he had her number.
Hey, sorry about last night. That was some dumb shit for me to try to pull and I get why you were so hurt. I’m not trying to be an ice queen or anything but I guess I just got scared. Not that that is an excuse that’s valid... I guess I don’t know what I’m trying to say except that I’m sorry.
Jen hit the send button and her text floated away through the air to wherever Seth was during that moment. She starred at her phone for a few minutes before putting it on vibrate and laying it on her chest. Just when she was about to doze off, it shook her awake.
Knights Templar (Sean) Page 5
