Sledge

by Jessie Cooke

  “Kill me now,” Trucker mumbled.

  “He told Soto where the guns were.”

  “Fuck, you think that’s who tried to burn us out?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not really Soto’s style to send out amateurs. If he wanted that warehouse blown up, it would have been an inferno that day.”

  “So why haven’t you just taken him to Wolf?”

  Sledge ran a hand through his hair. His eyes hurt from holding them open so long and his brain was starting to feel foggy. “I don’t know, man, I haven’t slept in over twenty-four fucking hours…I guess I just needed some backup.”

  Ash laughed. “Were the last twenty-four hours worth the lack of sleep?”

  Sledge smiled. “Fuck, yeah. Shit. Come on, dickhead, we’re off to see the Wizard.”

  Trucker looked up at them and with a straight face that made Sledge really want to kill him right there he said, “You got any Vicodin or Oxy?”

  Ash grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him to his feet. “Nope, but you can ask Wolf about that, I’m sure he can hook you up.”

  26

  Sledge couldn’t get his gloves on over the bandages, so he pulled them off and threw them on the ground next to his bike. “Are you sure you’re up for this?” Ash asked him. Ash was already geared up and ready to ride.

  “Yep,” Sledge said. He was beyond exhausted. His arms hurt like fuck and he wasn’t sure his left hand was going to do him any good even without the bandages, but he was doing this. He’d sleep for a week when this was over. He was scarred for life because of what some stupid fuck did, and he was going to be there when this thing came full circle if it killed him.

  He put on his helmet and slapped the visor down before starting his bike and falling into line behind Wolf, Manson, and Bruf. He and Ash were next and then Maz, Ransom, and a few of the other guys. They were on their way to meet with Soto, and Trucker was in the van following behind them, driven by one of the prospects, wherever Wolf was taking them.

  It had been a while since Sledge had been on his bike…too long. He loved the way it felt to sit on the leather seat and feel the vibrations of the powerful engine between his thighs. He loved the wind in his face and the sun on his back. He was happy when he realized they were heading in the direction of the warehouse and the new property. The air in the foothills was so much cooler than in the valley, and his exhaustion was a distant memory once they got out on the open highway. While he rode in line with his brothers, his thoughts went to Daria. He couldn’t wait to take her for a real ride. He’d take her up to Yosemite when she came back out, to see the falls, and have a picnic or something. Just the thought of it made him smile and warmed his blood. The annoyance of dealing with Trucker and the possibility of a war with Soto looming just around the bend were buffered by his thoughts of her. He couldn’t wait to see her wear his patch, and finally, after all these years, call her his old lady.

  His thoughts went back to what had happened earlier and he wondered who Wolf had called when he left the room. He had been livid when Sledge and Ash showed up at the clubhouse with Trucker in tow. Before he’d even dealt with the junkie, he had the prospect who had been working the front gates packing his shit for letting Trucker slip by. If a worthless, brainless junkie could breach the security systems they had in place, anyone could. Then, when Trucker tried to babble out his version of the story, Wolf had quickly grown impatient, told him to shut up, and turned to Sledge to explain. Sledge told the story, from Trucker’s turning up on his doorstep to bringing him to the clubhouse, while Wolf and the rest of the executive board sat quietly, listening. When Sledge finished Wolf looked at Trucker and said:

  “Who tried to light my warehouse on fire, you little fuck?”

  “Soto…”

  Wolf slammed his hand down on the desk, causing Trucker to nearly jump out of his chair. “You’re lying, you little douche! If Soto had been involved in that, it would be ashes. Try again.”

  Sweat was dripping off Trucker’s head and almost making a puddle underneath his feet. He scratched at his sores and stared at the ceiling and when he’d been silent for way too long Wolf said, “Take him to Soto and drop him off, I don’t want to look at him anymore.”

  “No! No, please…please, Wolf, just kill me yourself.”

  “You’ve got one more chance to tell me the truth.”

  “If I tell you the truth, you won’t give me to Soto? He’s going to torture me. For old time’s sake…”

  “For old time’s sake? I voted to let Coffee kill you back then. You murdered that beautiful girl and you got away with it.”

  “No…I didn’t mean for her to die. She wanted to get high…”

  “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” Wolf growled it at the top of his lungs. “The next words out of your mouth better fucking be who lit my warehouse on fire or Soto will be burying your skinny ass in the desert by nightfall.”

  Trucker looked at Sledge like he thought he was going to get help there. Sledge narrowed his eyes at him and shaking, scratching, and crying, Trucker finally said, “I didn’t tell Soto about the warehouse, that was a lie. I never talked to him. If I did, I’d be dead already. I heard he was looking for me and I ran. I have a friend who’s with the Vatos…”

  “The Vatos? You seriously thought those losers could help you take out Soto?” Wolf was looking at him like he just couldn’t believe how stupid he was. The Vatos were a gang of misfits that had formed in county jail and thought they were tough enough to take on Soto. It had taken him all of a month to run them out of the city limits. What was left of them had settled out in some Podunk dairy town in the central valley, and the last Sledge had heard of them, they spent most of their time cooking meth…and using it.

  “I was just scared. I didn’t have nowhere to go…nobody to turn to for help. They wanted something in exchange for helping me…”

  “So, you gave them my warehouse.”

  “They were supposed to blow it up and let Soto take the fall for it, that was their plan, not mine. They said they’d protect me…but then something went wrong, and I knew they’d turn on me too…so I came here…”

  “Because you thought we’d help you?” Wolf asked him, incredulously.

  Sledge shoved his arms in Trucker’s face then and said, “This is what went wrong, you fucking junkie. I’m going to be scarred for fucking life because of you.”

  “I didn’t set the fire!” Sledge almost knocked him out of the chair right then, but he could tell by the smoldering look on Wolf’s face that he had something much better in store for him. Wolf left the room then and when he came back he said:

  “Saddle up.” Nobody asked where they were going except Trucker, who was babbling almost incoherently by that time. He was finally shut up by the butt of Bruf’s gun, and loaded into the van. They cuffed his arms and legs with plastic zip ties just in case he woke up before they got where they were going. Sledge figured if the junkie was lucky, he’d die on the way there.

  As they drove up the dirt road on the way to the property where the warehouse sat, Sledge saw the cars parked in front of it. They were nice cars, expensive ones. As they got closer he saw Mario Soto step out of one of them. He’d brought about ten of his men with him and they all stood at attention, and staring straight ahead. One of the reasons Soto was so successful was that he ran his crew like a paramilitary organization. He was the Commander in Chief and no one made a move without his approval.

  Wolf parked his bike in front and turned it off. The rest of them parked theirs behind and waited. Wolf signaled them to stay where they were and got off his bike. Bruf got off his too and stood next to it. Everyone else sat still and watched. Soto and Wolf met in the middle, but they didn’t shake hands and they were looking at each other with disdain.

  “You have the pedophile?” Soto asked.

  “We have him,” Wolf said. “Is the girl okay?”

  “She’ll be fine. She lost her way and that scum took advantage of her, thoug
h. I’m not going to let that slide.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Wolf said. “You have that address for me?” Soto signaled one of his men, who stepped forward and handed Wolf a piece of paper. Wolf looked at it and stuffed it in his pocket. He signaled at Maz, who got off his bike and went over to the warehouse door. Taking a key out of his pocket, he unlocked the heavy lock that hung from the door and pushed the door open. The men all watched as Wolf and Soto went inside. Maz and Bruf stood sentry at the door, and two of Soto’s men stood alongside them. The two men were inside for several minutes and when they came out, Soto signaled the same guy that had given Wolf the piece of paper, and he stepped forward with a duffel bag. Wolf unzipped it, looked inside, and then tossed it toward Maz, who picked it up and carried it over to the van. He opened the back of the van and while he was securing the duffel bag, which was obviously full of money, Soto’s crew were carrying the crates of guns and ammo out of the warehouse and loading them into the trunks of the cars and the back of the SUV. Wolf and Soto had struck a deal apparently, and it probably wasn’t going to bode well for Trucker.

  Once the warehouse was empty and the Skulls wouldn’t have to worry any longer about being raided by ATF before they finished building their new clubhouse, that was when Wolf signaled to Ash and Sledge. They got off their bikes and went to him. Wolf looked at Sledge and said, “I know you have a soft spot for this guy, but…”

  “No,” Sledge said. “Not anymore. He’s had too many chances and he’s blown them all. He deserves whatever is coming to him now.”

  “Get him out of the van and load him in the SUV. He’s Soto’s problem now.” Sledge nodded, and he and Ash went over to the van. Sledge looked down at the unconscious, pathetic junkie as he lifted his feet out of the van. He weighed all of about a hundred pounds and now that Sledge looked at him up close, he could see that his skin wasn’t just pale white, it actually had a yellowish tint to it. He didn’t look like he had long to live as it was; maybe Soto would be doing him a favor. They carried him over and loaded him into the SUV. As they tossed him inside Sledge said goodbye to one more piece of his past. He watched Soto and his crew driving away a little while later and he thought about how his past seemed to be popping up all over the place all of a sudden. He wondered if the universe was trying to tell him something. Maybe, he thought, once this Trucker thing was settled, it was time to deal with all of the irons that he’d left in the fire so that finally, he could stop looking behind him and start looking toward the future for a change.

  Sledge got to sleep for about five hours that day before he was riding with his brothers again, this time to a two-story, ramshackle house, far out in the countryside. It was isolated, and the sound of their bikes would have alerted anyone guarding the house, or even awake inside, as to their arrival. So they parked their bikes at the end of the dirt-and-gravel road and walked up toward the house through an orchard that surrounded it, shrouded in the darkness. It was just before dawn and there was no moon or stars in the sky. Their saving grace would be the fact that the house up ahead was lit up like Christmas, undoubtedly thanks to all the busy workers inside making sure there would be enough methamphetamine to keep every tweaker in the Central Valley happily losing weight, and teeth, in the weeks to come.

  “Keep your flashlights toward the ground,” Bruf told them. “Watch out for booby traps.”

  Methamphetamine cookers were by nature paranoid people…maybe because they breathed in too much of their own product as it cooked. Wolf sent his men on this mission armed with gas masks so the same didn’t happen to them. Sledge missed his friend Smoke every day, but more so on days like this. He’d been shot and killed earlier that year, and Sledge had been shot at the same time; he just got lucky. If Smoke was here, he could turn that two-story meth lab into a pile of ashes in seconds, without anyone ever knowing he was there. No one was really ever sure how he did it…but damn, he’d been good at what he did.

  Tonight, Wolf had sent Bruf, Maz, Ash, and Sledge to destroy the house that the Vatos were using as a meth lab. His only direction to them other than that he wanted the house in ashes had been for them to take the gas masks and wear them. Ash was carrying them now in a pack on his back while Bruf led the way. Maz and Sledge were both carrying hunting rifles with long-range, night-vision scopes on them.

  When they got to the edge of the orchard they were about a hundred yards from the house. Bruf put his binoculars to his face and after a few minutes he turned to Sledge and Maz and said, “There’s a guard on each end of the porch and one sitting up on the roof. Aim for the one on the roof first,” he said to Sledge. “And then you can both take out the other two simultaneously. By that time, the rest of them will be drawn out. Just keep in mind,” he told them all, “we don’t have to get any closer than this. They’ll come out shooting, I guarantee it. We don’t even worry about aim unless one of them breaks away. That house with all of those chemicals inside is going to go up in smoke in a matter of seconds. Keep the masks on your faces until we’re out of range.”

  Ash handed one of the masks to Sledge, and he slipped it over his face before raising the gun to his shoulder and taking aim. Maz did the same, and he and Sledge made eye contact before Sledge fired the first shot. The guard on the roof flew backwards and then slid down the roof and hit the ground before the two on the porch were even on their feet. As soon as they stood up, Maz and Sledge were ready and Sledge fired again, this time at the same time as Maz. The two guards went down as three people with guns came racing out of the house, holding guns and looking out into the dark. They were yelling, but Sledge and the guys were too far away to hear what they were saying. They fired blindly in the direction the Skulls were firing from, hitting a tree from time to time, but thankfully nothing else. The firefight lasted less than ten minutes before one of the sparks caused an explosion…and the house was suddenly just gone, and in its place…a rolling inferno was all that was left.

  The Skulls didn’t wait to see what happened next. Their job there was done. Even if the people inside had a fire extinguisher, there would be no putting it out now and the fire department was at least a forty-minute drive away. The four men left their gas masks in place on their faces until they were a good five miles away and then they simply rode back to the clubhouse, their problems with Trucker, Soto, and the Vatos now a part of the past.

  27

  “Are you going to stand by that window all night? He’s obviously not coming.”

  “He’s coming.” Daria was sitting in the window seat at the front of her sister’s huge, rambling mansion, waiting for Sledge. Her entire family was there, both of her parents, her sister, her sister’s husband Dan, and their two children, Daria’s niece and nephew. Dinner was supposed to be served at seven. It was seven-fifteen now, Sledge wasn’t there yet, and he wasn’t answering his phone. But he said he would be there, and Daria believed he would be. “Traffic must be bad.”

  Liza rolled her eyes and left the room, undoubtedly to go back into the dining room and gossip with the rest of the family about Sledge. Daria had been home from California for almost a month. She missed Sledge like an amputated limb, and she was almost finished wrapping up her business and putting her apartment on the market when he called to tell her that he was going to be in the city. He said that there were things he needed closure on himself before she moved out to California to be with him, but he hadn’t told her what those things were, only that he’d talk to her about it when he got there.

  It didn’t matter to her what he was there for anyway, she was just ecstatic that he was coming. It was then that she finally decided to tell her family about the impending move out west. She’d met with Liza for lunch and told her first, and of course the dramatics had ensued. She’d received a call from her mother almost as soon as she got home that same day and that conversation had been just as dramatic. She had stuck to her guns, telling them both that she was an adult—self-sufficient, independent, and free to love and be with whomever she chose
. Standing up to them on her own was one thing…she’d always been able to do that. What she worried about now was how they’d treat Sledge, and how he would react.

  Daria had been shocked when Liza suggested the dinner, and at first she had flatly refused to even ask Sledge. She was suspicious, afraid that her snobby family planned to treat it like some kind of intervention and embarrass her and Sledge both. They’d kept needling her, though, and she finally decided to put it out there to him, fully expecting him to say no way. She’d been shocked again when he said yes. He had even told her he was looking forward to it. But now here she sat, waiting for him and…suddenly she heard a familiar sound. The sound of a Harley, coming up the long, paved road that led to the mansion. She jumped up out of the window seat like a teenager waiting for her prom date and ran over to the door. She threw it open just as he appeared on the big bike, and her stomach instantly filled with butterflies. She pulled off the heels she was wearing and ran outside. By the time she reached him, he’d stepped off the bike and she ran right into his arms. Sledge hugged her tightly before flipping up his visor. His smile caused other parts of her body to react, mostly parts south.

  “Well hello,” he said, pulling off the helmet. His hair was in a ponytail and he had a bandanna wrapped around the top and tied in back. He pulled that off too.

  “Hey,” she said, suddenly a little embarrassed by her behavior. “I’m sorry. I missed you.”

  He chuckled and pulled off his gloves. “Don’t ever be sorry for missing me.” He pulled her back up against him. He was wearing a black leather jacket, and she buried her nose in it and breathed in the soft leather…and him. “I missed you, baby, like crazy.” She looked up at him and he bent down, capturing her lips in a deep, intense kiss that she wished was going to lead to the bedroom…instead of the dining room full of her relatives. He broke the kiss and started to speak but she covered his mouth with her fingers and said: