Jamie must think so too, because he answers me right away. “He was greedy. Things might have cooled off all around if he just got out of town fast. We offered him some money, some get-lost money. He took it too. Then he started playing footsie with the Popeyes. He just wouldn’t go away and he wouldn’t give back the money.”
This is club business and confidential: I’m happy that he’s treating me like a man, not like a little brother. The club and its rules aren’t looking so great at the moment anyway.
“He had made enough,” Jamie says. “Having him around was making things dangerous for himself and for the club. Attracting heat from the cops and the Popeyes and even the Spartans. I think you know there are two sides to the club: the Ripper side and the Trollop side, the normal side and the nutbar side. He was helping the nutbar side, the guys who want to join up with the Popeyes.”
Then Jamie’s voice drops so I can barely hear it and he leans forward.
“I was trying to help him, even though he wasn’t being straight with us. Warn him. He was becoming a target. A few of the Spartans thought if they took him out it would make the Annihilators less attractive to the Popeyes. And I heard some of the Popeyes wanted to take him out, too. Just to show they should be taken seriously and not strung along. And some of the Annihilators wanted him out because they wanted everyone to know it’s not cool to change sides and play games. It seemed like it was going to be a race to see who could rub him out first.” Jamie pauses for a minute and pushes his pancakes around on the plate with his fork. When he speaks again, his voice is tired and sad. “He thought I was being nasty when I told him to get lost. I was the only friend he had but I couldn’t convince him of that.”
“What did the Popeyes think he had done wrong?”
“He was trying to negotiate. Threatening to go away and not cook for them if they wouldn’t pay him enough. There was even a rumor he was selling his recipe to guys connected to other clubs.”
“But aren’t there plenty of cooks?”
“He was a really good one. And they were probably losing him anyway, so why not make an example out of him for being too greedy? That way, others fall into line.”
Jamie leans back in his chair and shakes his head. He may be regretting that he’s told me so much, and I’m guessing my window for asking questions is about to close. I decide to get one more in.
“Why couldn’t you just have told the police you had an alibi?”
He owes me an answer here too.
He sighs, looks at me, and takes a deep breath.
“The Popeyes have friends everywhere. You’d be surprised. I bet they even have allies in the prosecutor’s office and in our own police force. Seriously. They’re bigger than they look. I needed it to be known that I’m solid. Otherwise, I’d have been dead in jail. Everyone knew there was at least one rat somewhere in the club. I didn’t need people thinking it was me. It’s not. And I wasn’t going to rat out anybody who was at the Guelph meeting, either, including Tom McCrae.”
Jamie’s eyes get watery. I’d visited him as soon as I got back from Montreal to tell him about Tom. It was a hard conversation to have, and it’s still hard to see my brother upset.
“He’s a—he was a brave man.” He’s fighting his stutter now. “He was taking a risk for me. He was solid.”
That’s as much as I’ll get from him. I get it, I think.
“I know I haven’t been the best big brother recently,” Jamie says.
It’s a pretty huge understatement but I let it go. I know it isn’t easy for him to admit this at all.
“I’ve got some decisions to make,” he continues.
Hopefully, this means he’ll be more of a drywaller and less of a biker in the future. He might not be on anyone’s hit list at the moment, but that could change quickly. Now would be a good time to bail on the biker life, if you ask me.
I glance down at my phone.
Brenda’s name is on my call display, along with her photo.
Jamie’s smiling at me when I look up again, like a proud big brother.
“You should call her,” he says. “She’s a keeper.”
Chapter
43
Brenda doesn’t pick up when I call back. That’s okay; there’s something I want to do before I see her anyway.
I meet Jake that afternoon with plans to spill some serious sweat in the gym. It’ll be the first time I’ve lifted with a spotter since the day of the incident on the bench press.
As we begin, Jake hikes his shorts up ridiculously high.
“You know how you know I’m going to do some good work today?” he asks, speaking in a deep, affected voice.
He’s trying to do some accent, but I have no clue which one. He’s totally pleased with it, however.
“I’ve got on my short shorts. That’s how you know.”
Jake also has a little ghetto blaster with him. He cranks up “King Kunta” and we get down to it.
What follows is ninety minutes of jock talk and hard work and dumb jokes and all of it feels totally necessary. It’s focused exercise punctuated by Jake striking bodybuilder poses, doing his gorilla walk, and reviving the rest of his greatest hits. At one point, he hikes up his shirt, flexes his chest, and says, “Welcome to Twin Peaks.” Then he nods at his arms and announces, “Sun’s out, guns out.” While we’re working our legs, he points to his quadriceps and says, “Please stand back—way back—and let Quad-zilla through.”
At one particularly tough point in our routine, Jake gives me an earnest look and says, “The secret is to keep breathing.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking.
He pauses a moment, then adds: “We will make it through this if we breathe.”
I can’t argue with that.
Chapter
44
That evening, I head back to the newsroom. I’d told the city editor I wanted a day or two, but sometime during my workout, I realized that I wanted to go back in, to do normal things.
I’m surprised by how good it feels to be on the job again.
It’s particularly nice to see Bill Taylor and his Illegitimi non carborundum sign.
“Welcome back!” he says, standing up to give me a quick embrace. He’s genuinely happy. Then he adds: “Rather have you as a colleague than a source. You’re kind of both now.”
“Yup,” is the best I can muster. “What are you working on?”
Neither of us wants to waste much time with small talk.
“Was going to ask what you think. A body was found in a vehicle by a field, about twenty minutes down the road from Trollop’s farm.”
“When?”
“Early this morning. Victim’s white, in his thirties, and heavily tattooed. He was shot in the head. Name’s Wally Parkinson.”
He can see me shudder.
“I know him.”
For the next few minutes, I tell Bill what I know about Wally and explain how he was hanging tight with Trollop at the party where I reconnected with Brenda. He and Jamie definitely weren’t close, although they would have called each other “brother.”
“He was the prime suspect in Ripper’s shooting,” Bill tells me.
I’m not shocked to hear this. Prospects like Wally are often willing to do crazy things to earn brownie points with the club. Wally was also an enthusiastic meth user. Big surprise that he screwed up the hit.
“Anything else?”
“His body was found in a stolen Ford truck.”
“Green?”
Bill nods.
“Do they think Wally killed Trent?” I ask. I assume the murders must be connected. How can they not be?
“Nope. He was picked up for drunk driving that night. He had a perfect alibi. Idiot luck.”
“He’s no thinker.”
“Exactly. He’s Trollop’s
guy. Ripper was in the way of the club getting closer to the Popeyes, so there’s your motive.”
“So who killed Wally?”
“Working theory is that Trollop ordered Wally to do the hit on Ripper. Then Trollop turned on him and killed him when it didn’t work out.”
“Then who killed Trent?” After all that’s happened, it still doesn’t seem like I’m any closer to knowing.
“It’ll be hard to prove unless someone rolls. Don’t have a solid identification but the talk is that the guy who took out Trent is someone local.”
“Not Baker the Undertaker?”
“Nope. I’ve learned a few things from some cell phone chatter that’s been picked up here and there.” He doesn’t go into details about his sources, and I don’t ask. “Apparently, it was supposed to be a double hit. The secondary target wasn’t there when he killed the cook.”
“Secondary target?” I can feel a nervous tingle creeping up my spine.
“They keep saying ‘she’ on their intercepts. Or ‘the girl.’ Or ‘sister.’ The cops know who she is but they’re having a problem locating her.”
The nervous tingle turns to full-blown panic in a nanosecond. He doesn’t have to say Brenda’s name.
“Why kill her?” I’m sure my voice sounds like a plea.
I text Brenda furiously as we’re talking.
“She might have heard things from her brother. They know she was brought in for questioning and that she was in the police station for quite a while.”
No reply from Brenda.
I call her.
Just voicemail.
Brenda has trouble keeping her phone charged, I tell myself. But what Bill says next causes my entire body to tighten.
“Do you know the name Carlito? I’d never heard of him until today. It’s an alias or something?”
“What? Where does he fit in?” I ask when I can speak again. I’m sure my voice is cracking.
“The name’s come up a few times. Some young guy? He apparently did a ton of time in juvie for some very serious stuff that not many people know about because he was underage and the records were sealed.” Bill’s shuffling through some papers now.
Carlito, violent? He’s always struck me as harmless, a poser who’s about talk and image—those stupid boots—not action.
“Oh, here,” he says, reading from a typewritten page. “The cops have him as a possible suspect for the cook. Tough, ambitious, and with a very violent past. The cook trusted him, apparently, so he would have been able to get close. The word is that the big club wants him to do another dirty job and then he’ll be a full patch Popeye.”
I’m shaking now. Have I been completely wrong about this guy?
“The latest is that he went to Quebec a couple of days ago for a face-to-face meeting with the Popeyes’ leadership,” Bill says. “Probably told to finish the job he started, to take out the secondary target.”
Secondary target? Can a life really be reduced to such a bland term? I bet he also reported on Tom McCrae, confirming that Tom was pushing against the Popeyes’ expansion into Ontario.
“And if Carlito won’t do it? The second hit?” I ask, trying to think clearly despite being scared out of my mind.
“He won’t refuse. It was an order. He could rise up quickly and be big with the Popeyes. Or he could end up in a ditch or hanging from a beam. This is his big moment.”
I text Brenda again, call her again.
Nothing.
Brenda’s been staying with her aunt since Trent’s murder, but she told me yesterday that she planned to go back to the townhouse, which is no longer sealed off as a crime scene. She probably told Carlito the same thing.
If Carlito wants to kill her, all he has to do is wait for her there. The same place he killed her brother.
Brenda won’t be afraid when she sees him: she might even smile and ask him how his trip was, and keep smiling right until he pulls out his gun.
Chapter
45
I’m driving like a maniac and there’s still no answer when I try Brenda’s cell phone.
My next call is to Bill. I kind of ran out on him without an explanation, and am sure he’s wondering what’s going on.
“You okay?” he says. “Where did you go?”
He clearly saw the panic on my face when I ran out—and now he’ll be able to hear it in my voice. I’m past being able to hide what I’m feeling. “I need you to do me a favor. Call the police. It’s really important.” I try to think of what our coaches tell us about staying cool in a game. There’s no room for panic in the Zone. Just do the job the way you know it should be done.
“Of course. What?”
His tone is totally businesslike, professional.
I give him the address of the townhouse and ask him to tell the police that there’s a gunman there. I know they’ll take it seriously if the call’s from Bill, and that he’ll know how to speed things up.
“You’ve seen a gunman?”
“No, but I will.” I’m hoping I won’t, but I can’t take any chances.
I’m just a few minutes from the townhouse now. I try to call Brenda again.
Still nothing.
I pull up to the townhouse and what I fear most is what I see next: Carlito is standing outside on the lawn with Brenda, a smirk on his face and a gun in his right hand. The gun is close to his body and someone driving by might not even notice it, but I can see it all right. There’s a little flash of light off the silver toe of one of his cowboy boots. Brenda’s facing him, her palms extended and empty, like she’s trying to reason with him.
I’m just in time to watch her die.
I can’t do a thing except sit in the car and stare. If I rush them, Carlito will open fire. He just has to move one finger and the girl I love is gone from the earth forever.
Somehow Brenda looks composed, even calm. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I saw a slight smile cross her face.
All I can do is watch, frozen in a bad dream.
Since the moment I first saw her, I’ve had this feeling that there’s more to Brenda than meets the eye, that she has some sort of special power or inner light or whatever you want to call it. I wonder if Carlito senses that too. He glances at me for an instant as I sit frozen in my seat. He looks smug, as though he’s enjoying having an audience.
What follows is like some crazy, slow-motion ballet. Brenda glides to her left as her right hand pushes the barrel of Carlito’s pistol away. It’s a short, efficient move that looks effortless. I guess I’m seeing the results of all that Krav Maga training.
Brenda’s in her own Zone now.
Her hands and arms wheel around in a couple of sharp, powerful movements. Then she glides away smoothly with the gun now in her hand and leveled at Carlito. I can barely believe what I’m seeing, but Carlito’s right hand is in obvious pain and his face is a knot of fury. He cocks his right leg as if preparing to deliver a hard kick.
Next, I see her right leg shooting out to deliver three crisp shots to his groin. One would have done the job but she’s not taking any chances. Carlito grunts in pain as he rolls into a fetal position.
Brenda doesn’t look afraid or angry or confused or amused.
Just deadly serious.
It would be so easy for her to finish him off with the gun. I wouldn’t blame her if she did. It’s probably what I’d do. And I certainly wouldn’t rat on her.
Long moments pass.
Nothing happens.
Chapter
46
Three Dodge Chargers and a police van are parked outside the townhouse. Brenda has just a few minutes to load all of her stuff into their trunks and move on, once again, to a place that’s totally new. She’s going into witness protection. According to the conversations going on around us, the trials for Trollop and Carlito co
uld take a couple of years. The police still have other killers to catch, and it’s definitely not safe around here. They won’t tell me where she’s going. She doesn’t even know herself yet. She just has to leave—now.
Cops wearing shades watch the roadway, just in case.
Brenda smiles at me but it’s a pained smile.
There’s so much I want to say. Too much for any one conversation. Or two. Or twenty. Definitely too much for a rushed talk surrounded by strange cops.
“I’m tired of starting over,” she says. Her voice is weary and flat. “It’s taken me a long time to find a friend like you.”
“How will we stay in touch?” I say.
“The moon,” she replies.
Just when I thought I couldn’t love her more, she goes and says something like that. She’s not taking love away. She’s moving somewhere safer. Somewhere better.
I haven’t even kissed her yet but I couldn’t feel more like we’re a couple than I do right now.
This is a chance for her to get away from the biker life and back in school, somewhere far away, maybe under a new name. That’s the best thing for her and I’ll have to adapt. We can figure it out. There are all sorts of places under our moon for us to meet.
I imagine Brenda won’t have too much to say about Jamie to the police. He wasn’t in the meth trade. He didn’t take part in the murders. She’ll have to answer questions about Carlito, though. I can’t imagine what it’s like to let someone into your world—into your bed—only to have that person destroy everything you care about. I guess Mom could tell me a little about that; maybe someday I’ll ask her to explain.
“Time to say good-bye,” a cop says.
“Come back for the prom.” I just blurt it out. It’s a joke and she gets it.
“How could I resist?” she replies as she walks toward one of the police cars.
A cop grimaces.
“I’ll start picking out my dress now,” she says next.
“You’ll need a spatula to get me off you.”
The Biker's Brother Page 16
