I kept after him about who she was talking to on the phone. He was so happy getting laid, he didn’t seem too bothered by all my questions.
“She talks to her nana sometimes,” he said.
The fuck? “She talks to her grandmother?”
“I guess. She just calls her Nana.”
I pictured Venus getting coked up and babbling away to an old cat lady with tits down to her knees. Not a pretty sight.
“She talk to anybody else?”
Benjy’s mood suddenly darkened. “Yeah… she goes in the bathroom sometimes and talks to somebody. She won’t tell me who.”
“Do you listen in when she does?”
“I try, but she runs the water and talks real quiet. I can’t hear real good.”
Shit.
“Benjy, I need you to get me her phone.”
“How?”
“Next time she passes out from drinkin’ too much, I want you to call me, and I’ll come over and check her phone. You hear me?”
“Yeah… okay.”
But I didn’t get the chance.
Jack fuckin’ Pollari saw to that.
103
Jack dropped by just an hour after my last conversation with Benjy. He was pissed as hell. “Ali’s using again.”
“Yeah, I sort of noticed,” I said, innocent as you please.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“If you’ll recall, I wanted to ice the bitch. I’ve been hoping she’d do me a favor and OD.”
Jack fumed, but what could he say? He knew I’d wanted to whack her from the beginning.
“Who the fuck has been supplying her?”
“I don’t know. You sure she hasn’t been seeing her food stamp man?” I asked, even though I knew that wasn’t the case. Although she might’ve been talking to him.
Jack stood there, silent and angry.
“I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” he finally muttered, then walked out.
I sat there and thought about calling Benjy to warn him, then decided against it. He’d be more convincing to Jack if he was totally surprised.
I guess we were about to see if Venus was a narc or not.
And if she was, I guess we’d see how good Benjy was at keepin’ his fuckin’ mouth shut. And if he couldn’t…
Well, I might have to dispose of three bodies in the desert.
104
Turned out she liked the dimwit more than I thought.
Jack burst in on them in the motel room while they were snorting lines. First he threw Benjy across the room and started yelling at him, “What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?! Did you give her this shit?!”
Benjy crouched in the corner like a whipped dog, arms over his head.
Venus started screaming at Jack, “Leave him alone! It was me – I was the one who gave it to him!”
That shut Pollari up real quick.
He asked how she got it. She was sullen and quiet until he started shouting at her.
“I know a guy, okay? Fuck off,” she yelled.
“Fuck this,” he muttered. He told her to pack a bag – he was getting her out of there.
“Where’re we going?” she asked angrily.
“To my place.”
Which was like throwing Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch, if you ask me.
She packed and got ready without putting up too much of a fuss.
She did give Benjy a kiss and told him not to worry, that she’d see him soon. Then she rode out of the parking lot on the back of Pollari’s hog. I’m sure her hands were all over him.
Benjy was heartbroken.
Oh well. At least he got his dick wet, and a lot more’n once.
As for me, I didn’t have her phone, I didn’t have any actionable intelligence on the DEA, and I was out six grand on coke.
Benjy got the fuckin’ deal of the century as far as I was concerned.
Me?
I just got fucked.
105
I told Jack we needed to check her phone. He fought it, but I reminded him that the fuckin’ club was on the line because he had tried to reform a drug addict and failed miserably.
He came around after that, and badgered her until she turned it over… but there were no strange numbers or texts on it.
Strike three. I was out.
Now I had a suicidal halfwit cokehead on my hands, hanging around my office and crying all the time. I had to let him do a line every few hours just to get some fuckin’ peace.
Jesus.
Life was so much simpler when I just killed people.
106
Benjy went back to his dingy apartment over by the train tracks. That is, when he wasn’t making my life miserable over at the Seven Veils. I told Chuck and Cowboy to keep him shitfaced out on the club floor, which kept him out of my hair… mostly.
Venus stayed at Jack’s for a week. He took a few days off and helped her through the worst of withdrawal. Swore he didn’t fuck her, which I believed. A depressed, paranoid bitch who keeps rocking herself back and forth in the bath tub ain’t exactly sexy, unless you’re into some weird-ass shit.
Once the worst of it was over, he went back to the body shop. He couldn’t watch her all the time; after all, he had a business to run.
She took the opportunity to call Benjy.
“Come get me – and bring something fun,” she said. “I wanna go to Vegas.”
He got high as a kite just from the phone call.
I gave Benjy all the blow he could carry, plus a couple grand spending money.
I only asked for one thing in return: “Don’t come back without something good to tell me.”
107
Jack was livid when he found out she’d split.
“Guess you’re not going to be givin’ the Betty Ford Clinic a run for its money anytime soon,” I said.
He tried calling Venus about a thousand times. No answer.
I hoped she was dead in a ditch somewhere. Or that Benjy was getting some good intel and I could stop this goddamn merry-go-round once and for all. I was getting’ fuckin’ tired of sending Peanut to LA to buy cocaine with nothin’ to show for it.
Strangely enough, Benjy and Venus ended up only staying in Vegas one night. They came back late the next afternoon. I figured the whole trip had been a bust, and she was going back to Jack and climbing back on the wagon.
I was wrong on both counts.
108
Benjy came through. He had something real interesting to tell me when they got back into town.
He came to see me as soon as he dropped her off at her apartment. He was happy she hadn’t gone back to Jack’s place, but he was disturbed about what she’d told him.
Apparently she’d broken down their first night in Vegas, sobbing on the bathroom floor of their hotel room.
I really fucked up, Benjy… I fucked up really, really bad…
She told him the psycho ex-boyfriend wasn’t just after her – he wanted her to betray the Midnight Riders. He wanted her to betray Jack, who had been so kind to her. He wanted her to betray Benjy, who’d never done nothin’ to nobody.
She apparently didn’t care that the ‘psycho ex-boyfriend’ wanted her to betray me, but whatever.
Benjy kept asking her who it was, but she wouldn’t tell him.
Is he in another motorcycle club? Benjy asked like the idiot he was.
…yeah. Yeah, he’s in another MC.
Yeah, right – if there’s an MC called the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Apparently she slipped away in the early morning hours while Benjy was passed out. He woke up around 5AM and she was gone.
He went out looking for her – first in the casino, then in every other casino on the Strip. Obviously he didn’t have any luck, so he gave up around 9AM and headed back.
She was waiting for him in the hotel room, packed up and ready to go.
Where were you? he asked.
I went down to the chapel, she said. I just needed to be alone.
/> I was pretty goddamn sure she hadn’t gone down to the chapel to pray, though.
Not unless there was a guy from the DEA she was giving her confession to.
Let’s go home, she said.
But… what about Vegas?
Fuck Vegas. I want to go home.
So the trip to Vegas was just an excuse to talk to her contact. Or he’d trailed her there and gotten her to meet him.
Either way, I wasn’t letting her walk a second time.
Snitches get stitches – the first time around. After that, they get a bullet.
109
I sat there across from Benjy in my office and pondered my options.
First I thought about just taking her to the desert and beating the truth out of her. I wanted to do that – I wanted to do it SO bad – but as soon as Jack found out she’d disappeared, he’d come after me. I could try to throw him off with She’s a drug addict, Jack, of course she split, but I didn’t think he’d buy it. In fact, I figured he’d try to beat the truth out of me, and I wasn’t particularly interested in that option.
What I did know was I wasn’t going back to Jack with this information. I was through with handing over the reins to that pansy.
So basically, I was just going to kill her.
That would remove the immediate problem, plus I could get a look at her phone before she could tamper with it. I figured she’d erased all the evidence on her cell before she handed it over to Jack.
But I had to play this right. I couldn’t pull the trigger on her. I would be at the top of Jack’s lists of suspects, so I had to make sure my alibi was airtight.
I would ordinarily get Eyeball or Roach to do it, but any of my regular guys would be next on the list after me. After the tattoo parlor incident, I knew Jack wouldn’t have a problem beating Eyeball to a pulp until he talked.
And I couldn’t risk involving somebody I didn’t trust with my life. They’d be too likely to squeal to Jack if he tightened the screws.
No, it needed to be somebody who was beyond suspicion… and who would have every reason not to want her dead.
I looked up, and saw the perfect triggerman sitting in front of me.
Well… not perfect, that was sure. There were various drawbacks.
For one, he was too dimwitted by half. However, that did work to my benefit, in a twisted kind of way. If he folded under pressure and blamed me, I could just say something like, I told him I wanted to kill the bitch, not that he should go out and actually SHOOT her.
From a certain perspective, Benjy’s simplemindedness could even be viewed as a plus. Plausible deniability. Jack would never believe me if I said the kid misinterpreted my words, but most of the club would back me up.
Plus, he was a drug addict now. He was unstable. Unreliable. Untrustworthy. At least to most folks, anyway.
Second drawback: he was in love with her. That looked like a huge problem on the surface, until you remember that a shit-ton of murders are crimes of passion committed by jealous boyfriends and husbands. I figured once I got him wound up, he’d do just about anything.
Third problem, and the biggest of all: the kid was basically good. He had a good heart, even if his brain was second rate. It was the biggest reason why he wouldn’t do it, and the biggest reason why he’d confess after it was over.
Although… if he could be convinced that what he was doing was for the greater good…
“Benjy,” I said, making my voice as regretful and pain-filled as possible. “I got somethin’ I need to tell you.”
110
He looked back at me with those blank, stupid eyes. “What, Lou?”
I sighed. “This ain’t gonna be fun to hear, kid.”
His face twisted up with fear and confusion. “What is it?”
“While you were away, I started asking around, talking to some of the other dancers. It…”
I made a face like it was torture for me to go on.
“What’d they say?!” Benjy demanded, already angry, already riled up.
This was going to be easier than I thought.
“They said Venus’s been fucking other guys behind your back.”
Benjy’s face crumpled, and his eyes filled with tears. “No… no, that ain’t true…”
“I’m sorry, kid, but that’s what they said.”
“WHO? WHO SAID THAT?!” he yelled as he stood up.
“Calm down,” I snapped.
He collapsed back in the chair. “Who? Who said it, Lou?”
“Never you mind. I don’t want you goin’ near any of my dancers, you hear me?”
“They’re lyin’, Lou – they’re fuckin’ lyin’!”
“I don’t think they are. They didn’t want to tell me, and they felt real bad about it ‘cause they all like you, but… yeah, she’s been fuckin’ around on you ever since you two started up.”
“No,” he whimpered, tears running down his cheeks. “No…”
Time to twist the knife.
“She said she was just fucking you for the drugs. She said you were dumb as shit, and you never even knew she was cheatin’ on you.”
He started to bawl. “No, no, no…”
“She said she couldn’t stand fuckin’ you. Said you had the smallest pecker she’d ever seen.” My voice became angrier the more I went on, as though I was outraged a woman would ever say these things about a friend of mine. “She said you didn’t do a thing for her… said she needed a real man with a real dick to fuck her, ‘cause you sure as hell couldn’t.”
Benjy hunched over and howled like a dying animal.
“And… Jesus… I don’t want to tell you this, kid, but…”
He looked up at me through his tears. “What?!”
“…there was more than one. She was fuckin’ this guy AND his friends. She’d let ‘em pull a gangbang on her. Said she fuckin’ loved it – how they fucked her two and three at a time. How dirty they made her feel. How she enjoyed it a million times more than fucking you.”
Now, if you were a little smarter than a five-year-old, you might start asking questions like, When the hell did she have time to fuck all these guys if I was with her every day, morning noon and night? In fact, when the hell did she have time to fuck ONE other guy?
Benjy wasn’t smarter than a five-year-old, though, so he didn’t ask questions. He just swallowed it all hook, line, and sinker.
The idea of his little angel being a total slut? With not just one, but multiple dudes doin’ her at the same time? It sent him over the fuckin’ edge.
“WHO?!” he yelled. “WHO ARE THEY?!”
“Benjy,” I snarled, “I’m not gonna tell you again: keep your fuckin’ voice down.”
He cowed like a whipped dog, but only for a second. “Who are they, Lou? Who are they?”
I hesitated for a second.
Do I tell him Jack? Throw in Kade for good measure?
No. Much as I wanted Jack out of my hair, the chances of Benjy being able to kill him were slim to none. He might be able to take him down if he caught Pollari by surprise, but there was no way in hell he’d get Kade, too. And odds were either one of them would see Benjy coming from a mile away and shoot him before he even got the chance to aim.
And if Benjy lived… even if it was only long enough to talk… that would be very, very bad for me.
First and foremost, I needed the bitch gone. And I was confident Benjy could do that, if I could overcome a few barriers.
“It was that guy she told you about – her ex-boyfriend,” I said. “That guy from that other biker gang. That’s why she went to Vegas – to fuck him and his buddies. And not only that, she went there to give him the information he wanted about us. The Midnight Riders.”
I saw the surprise in his face as he remembered what he’d told me and suddenly put two and two together. Even though in reality there was no fuckin’ way it added up to four.
“Remember her bein’ so upset?” I asked him, my voice getting angrier. “She said her ex wante
d her to betray us – and she did. She betrayed us, Benjy. She fuckin’ betrayed every single one of us. Not just you – she stabbed the whole goddamn club in the back.”
Strictly speaking, none of that woulda been true even if she had done it. Benjy wasn’t a member of the MC. He wasn’t a brother. He wasn’t patched in. He was a fuckin’ mascot, a joke.
But those sort of subtleties kind of escaped him at the moment.
“And you wanna know why she did it?” I hissed. “Because she’s a whore. A goddamn, low-down, no-good, cokehead bitch who cheated on you and laughed at you behind your back. She’s a thief, and a liar, and a traitor, and she deserves to fuckin’ die.”
I watched the emotions play out on his face. First his anger at the ex and the bikers, then fury at her – how DARE she fuck over my friends!
But when I said she deserved to die, it all turned to fear. He looked like a scared rabbit.
Suddenly it was touch-and-go. I might lose him right here.
“If Eyeball was a traitor and betrayed the club, what do you think we should do to him?” I asked.
The answer was easy. Benjy hated Eyeball.
“Kill him,” he said, his face darkening with spite.
“And if Roach was a traitor, and got everybody killed – what do you think we should do to him?”
He didn’t hate Roach, only disliked him. Roach laughed at him a lot, but that was the extent of it.
Didn’t matter. After handing down sentence on Eyeball, Benjy was still in the mood for blood.
“Kill him,” he said.
“And if one of my dancers sold us out – told all our secrets, and stole all our money, and let another gang come in here and shoot us all to hell – what should we do to her?”
“Kill her,” he said angrily.
I was pretty damn sure he had no idea where I was going next, even though it was obvious.
“Venus cheated on you. She lied to you. She humiliated you. She told all the other girls you got a tiny dick and you can’t fuck worth shit. She banged a whole buncha guys behind your back, and she only fucked you for your drugs. She basically stole that coke from you. That was yours – I gave it to you. In fact, she basically stole it from me.
Midnight Obsession: A Midnight Riders Motorcycle Club Romance Part 4 Page 25
