by Bella Knight
She bandaged the wound, “I’ll have Jack, our vet, come down after the ghillie-suited guy is in police custody.”
“The horse’s name is Lucky?” asked Ivy, after she ensured she and Bella had fed all the horses.
“Yep!” said Inola.
Ivy snorted, “That is the best name in the world for that damn horse.”
Bella went to the stall and peered over at Inola, “I want to do that,” said Bella.
“Do what?” asked Inola, gently patting the horse’s neck.
“Save that horse.”
“Looks like someone’s going to vet school,” said Numa.
“Looks like Jack will have a new apprentice,” said Inola.
“Damn you,” said Ivy, shaking her fist, “I just get a bar back that knows how to rock out, and now you’re abandoning me.”
Bella laughed, “Don’t worry. Ace and Lily will be home soon. Then, I can go to school.”
Ivy glared at her.
“At least you won’t have to let any of the bar backs go.”
Ivy brightened, “It’s summer. No school yet!”
“Wrong,” said Bella, holding out her phone to show the school’s website, “they have a summer session starting in two weeks.”
“Damn you!” said Ivy.
Numa came out of the stall, “You had a plan for Brazen Branson,” she said, approaching Ivy, “you want to tell me what it is?”
“Fun,” said Ivy, the light coming up in her eyes, “it’s gonna be fun.”
“Oh, Creator,” said Numa, looking up to the ceiling, “we’re in trouble now.”
Skulls Everywhere
Brian “Brazen” Branson first noticed the people with the leather jackets or vests with the skull on the back when he left the court. A man and a woman were talking on the courthouse steps with their backs to him. He ignored them and hustled to the Jag.
His wife, Tina, came back from lunch with the girls and mentioned a motorcycle with someone with a helmet that looked like a bug wearing a vest with the skull on the back tricked out in silver. She was gathering the courage to ask the person to move because the person was blocking the Mercedes. The person waved at her with a gloved hand and roared off.
Two very large motorcycles were in front of his car on the way to the office in the late afternoon, after a three-martini lunch… with a judge he was fucking. The jackets had the skull on them.
John Beech never returned his calls. He received a text, “Problem solved,” around midnight. They had several problems. One was a woman crying rape. He knew she could be reasoned with, or bought off. One was that crazy woman, Daniela Pierce, wanting her lowlife son and his girlfriend dead, and willing to pay far above his already-astronomical fee to do it. And, there was the jury in an arson case. He had told Beech to take care of it, preferably by hiring someone with the same modus operandi to burn something else down so his client would be exonerated. But nothing afterward; they were supposed to meet for drinks that day.
Someone in a biker jacket with that same skull on it was in the elevator when he got on in the parking garage. It was a tiny woman. She nodded at him and got off at the third level. He texted Beech and got no reply.
He told his head of security to prevent anyone with a motorcycle jacket or vest from entering the building, “It’s a public building,” said Varney, “we can protect your floor, though.”
“See that you do,” said Branson.
That evening, his wife told a story about seeing someone with that jacket getting her nails done in the same place Tina did. She was nervous and canceled the appointment.
John Beech skipped drinks with him. He left several angry messages and ordered him to find the motorcycle people and knock some heads together.
The next day, a motorcycle person wearing a jacket with the distinctive skull on it shoved past him at jury selection for the arson case. Branson told his associate, Martin Bainbridge, about it. Martin complained to the bailiff.
The judge snorted, “That’s just the Nighthawks. Never seen them in my courthouse, I tell you. Stop wasting my bailiff’s time with nonsense.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” said Branson. He fumed at being dismissed.
Judge Richard was old, but he was canny. And he didn’t put up with Brazen’s tactics, either.
Martin started seeing the people in the skull-emblazoned jackets too. He said two of them sat at a table near him at the favorite spot for well-heeled attorneys, eating prime ribs and chatting about the weather.
Two of them followed Tina on their bikes, roaring past her as the driver turned to get into the club. She called her husband, crying, and said she wouldn’t be leaving the house for a while.
Branson confronted the firebug about it during their conference. Val “Sparky” Hargis looked at him as if he were crazy, “Be having a problem with people, I am setting things on fire,” he said, “not wearing no leather.”
He was accused of setting fires to go after the enemies of one Big Mike, a local drug lord. Branson wondered if Big Mike, who was paying him, was sending people to watch him.
“Check into Cho’s life story,” said Branson to his spooked associate, referring to the woman who cried rape on his client, “does she have biker friends or a boyfriend?” Martin wrote it down to investigate.
Martin went out to wolf down a slice at the place around the corner before going through another ass-numbing day of jury selection. Both in front of him and behind him in the line were people wearing that same distinctive jacket. He was so spooked he almost forgot to pay.
The woman behind him in the jacket handed him a five, “Forget your wallet?” she asked.
He shoved her hand away, paid, and ran out of the joint. He threw up in a trash can alongside the street, threw away the slice, and downed his Coke. He threw that away too. He was heading to his ten-year-old Acura when he saw two women with tattoos up and down their arms looking at him. They turned and walked away. They were both wearing vests with the skull on it. He ran to the car, got in, and drove home as fast as he could.
Branson started to worry about Martin. The man was usually so malleable. Now he was jumpy, stuttering into the phone about how some motorcycle gang was watching him. Branson yelled at him to buck up. After all, they were only staring, not doing anything.
He finally started putting two and two together when he had his new —and very pretty legal secretary look up the Nighthawks online.
Her report was very brief, “They ride around on motorcycles. They have a skull and ‘Live Free or Die’ as their motto. They have never had, as far as anyone could tell, even a traffic or speeding ticket. None of their members frequent the jails. They didn't seem to be on anybody’s radar. They even have a website, which lists people with strange names like Ace and Hammer.”
He smiled at the silly names, then realized with a start that Aiden’s name now, according to his mother (Daniela Pierce), was Ace. He called up the website, and a face with Daniela's distinctive cheekbones looked back at him. His skin got cold. Daniela had asked him to go after the member of a motorcycle gang. He looked back on his single conversation with her, mostly in code. She didn’t trust that she wasn’t being recorded. She hadn’t said a thing about her son being part of a motorcycle club.
He called John and left a blistering message for him to call him. He called Sheila, his wife. She said, in a quavering voice that showed she was already half-sloshed, that John hadn’t been home in days and that she had no idea where he was.
He hung up the phone, “Useless woman!” he said.
He called Kelley, one of his security team, “Find me, John Beech,” he said, “and get me a detail. I want someone with me, and my wife, twenty-four hours a day.”
He considered getting one for Martin, but he laughed it off. He could always get a new associate.
Kelley called him back, “Beech has been gone for over forty-eight hours. His wife thought he was on a job for you, or with one of his other women.”
“Does it look like he’s here?�
�� asked Branson, “find him!”
“Yes, Sir,” said Kelley.
Kelley called him back an hour later, “I’ve got some blurry pictures of drivebyes of the courthouse, your office building, and the restaurant. Can’t see faces, but the jacket is distinctive. You’re being stalked, Sir.”
“I need enough to get a restraining order,” barked Branson.
“Too blurry for now,” said Kelley, “license plates have dust or mud splattered across them. They wear full-faced helmets, too.”
“Well, get me something I can use,” said Branson. He slammed down the phone.
He poured himself two fingers of bourbon. He stood, walked around, then sat down. He’d been reviled, spit on, threatened, and investigated. He’d let his team handle it. He’d had worse.
At half past eight, when he was done going over court documents and had only the light over his desk on, staring into nothing and sipping bourbon, he got a call on one of his burner phones, the one Beech sent him proof on.
“Beech?” he said.
A voice gasped into the phone. The person swallowed wetly, “They know everything, Brian,” said Beech, “proof…”
“Beech?” said Branson, sitting up straight in his chair, “what proof?”
“Motorcycle… skulls… safe deposit box…” whispered Beech, “they got… my key. Got… away…”
He listened and there was silence.
Next wet coughs, then a moan, “Sorry. Threatened… my wife.” The line went dead.
“Beech!” screamed Branson into the phone. Then, two beeps, one for each message, sounded. Two pictures, closeups of a couple, on the ground. One bled through a cracked faceplate. One had a shot in the neck.
A text followed, “Project completed.”
“Beech, you stupid fuck,” said Branson, draining his drink, “why didn’t you tell me these fuck faces were in a motorcycle gang?”
He threw the crystal glass across the room. It shattered the mirror over the bar. He walked over to the bar, shook off the glass on a decanter, got another crystal tumbler, and poured himself more bourbon. He gave it to himself straight.
He called Penny at the bank where he was a special customer. He asked for an eight-thirty am ‘before-bank-hours viewing’ of his security deposit box. He slept reclining in his chair, not wanting to deal with his hysterical wife.
He rode in a sealed, armored Maybach to the bank, rented along with the driver from his security company. Penny let him in. Just as he stepped in, a woman in a black suit with twists of platinum hair stepped in next to him.
“Am I on time?” she said. She held a playing card in her hand. The club logo skull sparkled in the harsh Vegas morning light. Taped to it was a safe deposit key.
“Sir?” asked Penny.
“She’s with me,” said Branson. He signed, then entered the safety deposit box room.
Penny and he twisted at the same time. Penny slid out the box and lay it on the table.
“Leave it,” he said, “leave us!” The girl with twisty hair looked at Penny with bright, shining blue eyes.
He opened the box, exposing the cash, and little bits and pieces of insurance he had collected.
“What do you want, bitch? Cash?”
“You killed my best friend and my second-best bartender,” said Ivy, “I think we’re past money, don’t you?”
“You killed, or almost killed, my fixer,” said Branson, “at the least, he’s burned. He was useful to me.”
“He told me about Tammy Cho, how you were planning to threaten her to recant, or pay her off. With that money,” she said, pointing to a stack of hundreds.
“She’ll recant,” he said, “money walks and bullshit talks.”
“She’s in our custody,” she said, “no Nighthawk will let you or anyone you hire get near her.”
He puffed out a laugh, “So, what?” Are you trying to destroy my business? Over a bartender?”
“What about the arson? The guy you hired to firebug the same apartment as the witness who was caught putting locks on the emergency exits.”
“I hired no one,” said Branson, “I’m not responsible for what John Beech may or may not have done.”
Ivy leaned forward, looking into the cold, green eyes of a reptile. She pointed to the box.
“That says you are responsible. At the very least, you have proof, proof you didn’t take to the police.”
“Why should I?” Branson stared at her, “people like you are cockroaches. I get a few out, crush the rest. Who the hell cares?”
“They do!” said Ivy.
The door swung open, and Hernandez, her partner Davis, and several members of the LVMPD filed in. The box was taken into evidence by two gloved techs.
“You’re making a mistake,” said Branson, “you know I’ll be out in an hour.” And be on a flight to the Caymans, he thought.
“Good,” said Hernandez, “or haven’t you figured out that you pissed of a bike club?”
“Arrest her!” screamed Branson, “she admitted to beating up, and probably killing, John Beech!”
“Did you say that you did that?” Hernandez asked Ivy.
“Not that I recall,” said Ivy, “let’s listen to the recording and find out.”
“Arrest her!” screamed Branson, nearly foaming at the mouth.
“Why?” asked Hernandez, “I’m not stupid enough to make a motorcycle club full of people that wear skulls on their jackets mad at me. Oh, yeah, and you’re one cockroach I’m going to enjoy crushing.”
She ignored the glaring from the imperious Branson as he was cuffed.
“Now, then. What do we have here?” A photographer took pictures of everything.
Henry met Ivy at the door. A line of bikers lined the path from the door to the bank to the waiting marked cop car, making a tunnel. Men, women, all wearing the skulls on their backs, of the Nighthawks, all with stony faces and angry glares, with arms crossed over their chests. Branson tried to brazen it out, walking past a sea of leather, but he was missing his fixer. The Maybach and the driver were gone. There was nothing but the heat like a hammer and the glares of the Nighthawks.
The cops were careful to keep him from bumping his head while putting him in a police car, and then they got in. The line moved to make a double row one cop car wide from the car to the exit. The car drove slowly through, giving Branson to see the looks on every angry face. The police car exited the bank lot turned, and bikes roared, lining up behind the cop car. In pairs, the Nighthawks got on their bikes and followed the cop car to the station.
Ivy and Henry stayed behind, “You still here?” asked Hernandez, coming out with the techs and two boxes sealed with evidence tape.
They nodded.
She looked at the line of bikes roaring past, “Nice touch,” she said, “he’ll try to turn state’s evidence, try to call the Feds crying. We can’t block that entirely, but that box there had enough to make Brazen there and his second-in-command, go away for basically… forever!”
“What about Guerrero?” asked Ivy.
“Special Agent Guerrero isn’t so very special right now,” said Hernandez, “she froze us out and tried her level best to antagonize our best witnesses, so we froze her out and busted Brazen Branson and his special friend Beech all by our little lonesomes. I’m hearing that pissed off her bosses.”
Davis stared as the last bike roared by, “I wonder if we can lose some paperwork and get him into general pop? When this gets out, the stink will make its way into the bowels of the system. Some will like his tactics down there. Some will be very, very angry.”
Hernandez looked at Henry and Ivy, “What the fuck are you still doing here? And, say ‘Hi’ to Ace and Lily for me. We’ll see them at the trial, but that won't’ be for a while.”
“Will do,” said Henry. He inclined his head and walked Ivy to her bike.
The techs filled up their van, and all the cops got in their vehicles and drove away.
“You okay?” Henry asked Ivy.
She rubbed her arms as if she were cold, despite the heat rising from the asphalt around her.
“That —thing —was willing to absolutely do anything to win. If we hadn’t had you to see the attack coming…” Henry pulled her face into his vest as she finally cried.
School Day
The parents —Katya, Gregory, Luis, Omar, and Yelena —all congratulated Tina and Henry for the first day of class at the new school. Katya was going to school for her own certification; she was very tired of serving cocktails. Club members had to get a background check to work with the kids. Many of them helped Pablo, Isis, Elena, David, Jaci, Delsin, and Tate with their lessons. The students had stations all around the room —math, reading, science and nature. Then art, music, and dance. They all learned the recorder and the ukulele. They learned for free online at the Khan Academy and learned Spanish from Tina, Paiute from Henry, and Russian from Katya. They started with math, and went forward in twenty-five-minute blocks, with long recesses. The students learned how to make their own bento box lunches with YouTube videos.
Pablo asked Elena the obvious question, “Why do you have scars on your face?”
“My ex-father threw acid on me. It ate my face. I have surgeries until they fix it.”
Pablo thought about that for a minute, “That sucks.” They were building a 3D Eiffel Tower. He passed her a puzzle piece, “did he go to jail?”
“Yes,” said Elena.
“The guy who killed my dad went to jail, too,” said Pablo.
“That sucks that a guy killed your dad,” said Elena, “I think I have a new dad, but he doesn’t kiss my mom, just holds hands with her and stuff.”
“Tito hangs out with me a lot,” said Pablo, “but he has another girlfriend. I don’t think my mom will marry him. Some guy from church comes over a lot, Jeffrey. He’s okay.”
Henry was teaching math manipulatives at the math station with Omar and Luis, the youngest. Tina was reading books on the beanbags in the corner with Isis, Jaci, Tate, and Design.
Henry carefully moved his eyes to look at Elena, who was in the doorway, hands clapped over her mouth. Tears were running down her face. She removed her hands. Henry was relieved to see that she was smiling.
