by Jessie Cooke
Tamara turned her face the other way and he reached down and grabbed her hair. He turned her face back toward him as he got up on his knees on the bed. She was primed to bite it off if he put it in her mouth, but thankfully they were interrupted. The door flew open and Tamara heard a man’s voice. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Giving this little slut what she has coming.” His hand was still fisted tightly in her hair and his erection was pressed into her lips.
“Get off her, Eddie just drove up.”
“Fuck,” the big pervert whined. “I thought he wasn’t coming until tomorrow.”
“Those bikers have been shaking shit up. He’s livid. You don’t want to have your dick out when he walks in here.” Tamara breathed a sigh of relief when she felt him let go of her hair and stand up off the bed.
“This isn’t over, cunt.” He was only inches away as he tucked his erection back into his shorts. Tamara never knew she could be so vicious, or maybe it was stupid. Either way she couldn’t stand the thought of him just walking away feeling like he won. She snapped her head forward with her mouth open and bit down. She got a mouthful of his shorts, but she could also feel that she had part of his penis in her mouth. He screamed and grabbed hold of her hair again. For the third time that day she felt the jolt of pain across her face and tasted the metallic taste of blood in her mouth right before her world went black.
It was a rule set in stone amongst MCs that women and children were off limits; even Gunner knew that. But Eddie Munster obviously wasn’t all that bright. Randall and the rest of the club, as well as Dax and the rest of the Skulls that were with him, had seemed willing to settle for destroying Eddie’s business and saving the kids. But Eddie had gone and broken the cardinal rule, and he was going to suffer for it.
“I want everyone he has any contact with rounded up. I want to know where to find this son of a bitch, now!” Randall Covey went from not looking as scary and lethal as he was rumored to be, to having demons dancing in his eyes within seconds. He looked at Tommy and said, “Call the clubhouse and tell the prospects to get all the brothers there, the kids and old ladies too. I want the place on lockdown and all hands on deck. When we find this son of a bitch and get Tamara out of the way, we’re going to rain a hailstorm down on that motherfucker the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Viet-fucking-Nam.”
“What about her phone, Randall?” one of the brothers asked.
“Shit, I didn’t think to ask Pete about it. Call him. I’m going to take Brick, Tommy and Lug-nut to that fucker’s house. The rest of you split up and tear up his clubs and offices.”
“Gunner, come with me,” Dax told him. Gunner still didn’t have a gun but that was okay, because if he got a shot at Eddie or anyone that had touched Tamara, he wanted it to be with his fists. A gun would be too impersonal. “Cody, you too. We’ll go with Miser since he knows the city. Pablo, take Jimmy and Fast Lane and go with Hoover. We’ll hit the clubs. You guys take his offices. Hoover, you know the downtown area, right?” Hoover was a Head Hunter, an older guy that had cut his baby teeth on a pair of leather chaps.
“I know where this asshole’s offices are. Fucker has offices like he thinks he’s somebody important.”
“He’s about to be somebody dead,” Randall said as he settled his bulk onto his hog. “Keep in touch.” He fired up his bike as Dax went over to the front of the van. The prospect in the driver’s seat rolled down the window and Dax said:
“Get them out of town. Start heading toward home. It’ll take you a couple days to get there and by that time they’ll have the ranch locked down and be ready for them.”
“What should we do about sleeping and feeding them, Prez? If we stop and let them out they’re gonna run.”
“Keep them in the cage,” Dax told him. “You two take turns driving and sleeping. Don’t get stopped by the law or you’ll have hell to pay trying to explain four adolescent runaways in the van. Don’t let them out until you’re on the ranch. Feed them through the cage. I know it’s shitty treating them like they’re animals, but hopefully they’ll thank us later.” The prospect nodded and Dax slapped the side of the van before getting on his bike. Tommy had taken Gunner to the bar on their way to San Antonio that morning and he’d picked up the bike he borrowed from the ranch. He slid onto that one and strapped on his helmet. His hands were shaking, not out of fear, but anger. He’d never given any thought to whether or not he was capable of taking a life, but at that moment there was no question in his mind. If they hurt her, he was going to kill them with his bare hands. It was that simple.
Dax pulled out of the small lot in front of the projects where they’d been collecting the child prostitutes, and Miser rode alongside him leading the way. Gunner rode alongside Cody feeling anxious and frustrated. He wanted to fast-forward to the moment where he knew Tamara was safe and Eddie Munster was dead. Miser and Dax were following every rule on the road. Gunner knew it was so they didn’t get stopped and have the hassle of trying to get away from the cops, especially since they were armed to the teeth, but it felt like they were taking forever and it was killing him to think of what Tamara might be going through in the meantime.
They finally got to the first club a half an hour after they left the projects. It was a rundown-looking place in a shitty neighborhood. There was a neon sign on top of the ramshackle building that announced, “Topless Dancers.” It was just after noon and there were already four or five cars in the parking lot. They parked their bikes, and Dax and Miser both took out their guns before they got to the front door. Cody slid his out of his vest. Gunner felt almost naked, being the only one unarmed. He preferred his fists over using a weapon, but maybe that was because he’d never gone into a place with the intention of doing any real harm to anyone.
Miser went in first with Dax and Cody following and Gunner bringing up the rear. Cody stopped just inside to scan the exits and take in what was going on around them. He always seemed to be alert and ready for anything…on edge. Gunner assumed they were traits that made him a good sergeant at arms for the club. It was dark and smoky in the small hot room. Two girls, both of whom looked barely legal, danced on top of the bar. One of them was wearing tassels and a thong and the other had nothing on but a G-string. Two middle-aged men sat at the bar gawking up at them, and another sat at a table getting a lap dance from a dancer who looked to be about thirty. She was either Eddie’s oldest employee, or a life of drugs, sex, and alcohol had been unkind. The bartender was a young guy with a bright yellow Mohawk and tats all over his neck and arms. He was the only one who registered that the guys had come in, and as soon as he saw the guns in their hands he ducked down behind the bar.
“Excuse me!” Miser said, loudly. The music was loud but his voice carried over it. Still, no one looked up. He glanced at Dax, and Dax raised his pistol and shot it into the air. That got their attention. The girls screamed and dove off the bar, and the one giving the lap dance sat down on the middle-aged man’s lap like he was Santa Claus. One of the guys tried to run for the door. Gunner stuck out an arm and clotheslined him. He fell to the dirty floor gasping for breath. “As I was saying,” Miser went on. “Excuse me for interrupting your afternoon. We’re looking for Mr. Eddie Martini.”
All they received from everyone in the room was a blank look. Cody walked over to the fat man with the torn-up dancer on his lap and put the gun in the man’s face. “Have you seen Eddie?”
The guy was sweating like a pig. He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know Eddie.”
“Eddie never comes down here anymore,” the woman on his lap said. “He sends Leroy in to collect the cash receipts twice a week. We haven’t seen Eddie in months.”
“But if you need to get ahold of him…?”
“Mikey has his number.”
“Mikey is?” Cody asked. At the same time, out of the corner of his eye, Gunner saw the bright yellow Mohawk appear around the corner of the bar. The bartender was crawling on his hands and knees toward the b
ack. Gunner took two steps, reached down, and grabbed the guy by the back of his shirt. He shoved him up against a wall of glass bottles of alcohol that came crashing down around them.
“Mikey…I presume?”
Mikey had tears in his eyes. “Don’t hurt me. This shitty job is not worth it.”
Dax walked over as Gunner held the guy up off the floor. “You’re right, this shitty job is not worth it, so I suggest you start talking. Where can we find Eddie Martini?”
“I just have a phone number.” Gunner turned and pushed the man’s back into the wall again, harder this time. More bottles shattered, some of them into the bartender’s back. He cried out. “I swear! I don’t know where he is. I have two phone numbers. One is a cell and is only to be used in absolute emergencies, and the other is to his office downtown.”
“Give us them both,” Dax said.
Gunner let Mikey slide down to his feet. “You want me to write them down?” he asked Dax, meekly.
“Yes.” The bartender limped over near the cash register. The back of his head was bleeding. He scribbled the numbers down on a receipt. He handed it to Dax and after looking at it for a second, Dax handed it to Gunner and said, “Call the top one and ask for Eddie.” Dax took out his phone then and while Gunner was waiting for his own call to ring he heard Dax say, “Hi, baby, can you ask David to get a GPS location on a phone for me?” Without explaining why, Dax rattled off the number and said, “Thanks, baby. I love you too.”
Damn. Gunner wanted a woman like that. “Martini Collections,” a female voice came over the line Gunner was holding on.
“Yes, I’d like to speak to Mr. Martini, please.”
“Can I ask who’s calling?”
“Just tell him it’s Mikey. There’s been some trouble at one of his clubs.”
“Mr. Martini isn’t in at the moment; use the emergency number if you need to.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No, and I know this isn’t Mikey. I’m hanging up now.” Shit. He looked at Dax.
“She says he’s not there.”
Dax’s phone beeped. He looked down at it. Ignoring the bartender, he looked at Miser, Cody, and Gunner and said, “Angel is on it. Let’s get out of here.”
19
The crews hit every one of Eddie’s clubs, offices, and known hangouts, with no sign of him and no help from anyone they talked to. They roughed up more than a few of the guys at the clubs who worked for him, and still no one was talking. It was getting dark and Gunner was getting more anxious by the minute. He knew Eddie and the freaks that worked for him. He didn’t want to imagine what Tamara was going through, if she was still alive.
The men all met at a bar in downtown San Antonio that evening. They discussed who they spoke to and what they’d found out, which was nothing. Every lead they had so far had come up empty. They were throwing around ideas when Randall’s phone rang. He looked at it, and Gunner could see the sadness in his eyes when he realized it wasn’t Tamara. Whatever else could be said about the man, he loved his daughter.
“Yeah, Swinger…how did things go in the Hill Country?” There was a pause while he listened to what his prez had to say and then he said, “We’ve been busting heads all day and none of these assholes are talking. This is my baby girl we’re talking about, Prez. If he hurt her…” His voice cracked and Gunner realized it was a lot harder to see a man like Randall in emotional pain than someone that wouldn’t have any qualms about showing it. He composed himself and then said, “Okay, thank you. I’ll keep you posted.” He ended the call and looked around the big table at the men that were all just as discouraged as he was. “Is the clubhouse okay?” he asked Miser, who had just spoken to one of the men there.
Miser nodded. “They’re keeping it on tight lockdown. There hasn’t been any sign of trouble.”
“Fucker thinks he can stay hidden, he’s got another thing coming.” Tommy grumbled as he pounded back a shot. “If he’s got any balls he won’t have them for long. I’m going to cut them off and…”
“We know what you want to do to him,” Randall said. “We all feel the same. Right now, what we need to do is keep a cool head.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that, Dad? She’s a part of me! How the fuck am I supposed to keep a cool head knowing that she’s somewhere out there being…”
“Don’t say it! She’s a part of me too. We’re going to find her and she’s going to be back to sassing us both by tomorrow.”
“How are we going to find her? Everyone we talk to is so fucking afraid of this piece of shit that even if they knew where he was, they wouldn’t tell us. They’d rather face our fucking wrath than his. What does that say for Tammy’s chances?” Tommy slammed another shot as Dax’s phone made a chirping noise. He pulled it out and looked at it and then up at Randall.
“We have a GPS location on Eddie’s phone.”
Randall was on his feet. “Where is he?”
“The phone is at a home in Alamo Heights.”
“Fuck! That’s like two miles from here! We’ve been running around looking for her all day and she was two miles away. Let’s ride!”
Everyone stood up, and Dax put his hand on Randall’s shoulder and said, “Wait a second, Randall. That house belongs to a retired city official. It’s alarmed to the teeth. If we go over there busting down doors…”
Randall shrugged Dax’s hand off his shoulder. “So what the fuck do you expect us to do? We should go over and ring the fucking doorbell and ask them if they might have my daughter tied up, beaten and…fuck! I’m going to get her!”
“My brother-in-law is sending over the floor plans to the house right now. Let’s at least have a look at them and get a plan in place before we bust in there, Randall, that’s all I’m saying. I get how emotional you are. If it was my family in there I don’t know what I’d do, but I know you don’t want to make things worse for your daughter.”
Gunner could feel the rage and anxiety bubbling up in his chest. It had been there all day, but every second that ticked by made it worse. Dax knew what he was doing, but Gunner knew Eddie. Eddie didn’t take people for ransom or blackmail. Eddie took people to prove one point only, and that was that he was the only one in control. He didn’t want the money back that the Head Hunters had taken the night of the fight. That was probably pocket change to him. What he wanted was to prove that nobody stole from Eddie Martini and got away with it. He planned to kill Tamara. Gunner knew that and it was eating away at his insides like a cancer.
“You okay, kid?” Dax asked him.
“Yeah,” Gunner lied. He didn’t want to do or say anything that would make Dax think he wasn’t up for this. When they found Eddie, he wanted to be there. If Randall and Tommy left any piece of him whole, Gunner wanted it.
Dax’s phone chirped again. He looked at it and said, “Okay, I’ve got the plans. It’s your call, Randall. Do you want to take a look at them or not?” Randall nodded. Tommy looked like he was about to explode, but one look from his father kept him from saying whatever he had opened his mouth to say.
“Hey, darlin’,” Dax called out to the cute little cocktail waitress. She put the tray of dirty glasses she was carrying down and hurried over. “I don’t suppose you have a laptop and a printer there in the back that we could borrow for a few minutes?”
“Um…” She looked over her shoulder at the bartender and back at Dax. “We’re not really supposed to let anyone other than employees in the back.”
“Well, you see, darlin’,” Dax said, making direct eye contact with her as he spoke. She seemed mesmerized by him, but Gunner had seen him have that effect on almost every woman since they’d met. “We’re from out of town and we are looking at buying a house for this man’s daughter. It’s a surprise, a wedding present.” The waitress looked at Randall, who was scowling, and quickly returned her attention to Dax. “Anyways, a friend of mine sent over the plans to one that I think she’d really like. All I need is to have those printed off.
You could do it for me if you have a minute.” Dax pulled a roll of cash out of his pocket and said, “I guarantee you I’ll leave the best tip you’ve gotten all day.”
“Well I guess it would be okay for me to do it,” she said, eyeing the money in Dax’s hand. The bar was a dive, and it was doubtful she could match what he had in his hand in her tips for the last month.
“Thank you, darlin’,” Dax said before handing her the cash. She stuffed it in the pocket of her apron, and then she and Dax worked out the details of the email address he would send the plans to on the office laptop and how many copies he needed of it. Once she left to go into the back Randall said:
“I’ll make sure you’re compensated for the money you’re spending on all this.”
Dax shook his head. “Your boys saved Gunner’s life the night of the fight, and his friend’s. Then for over a week your girl opened her house to us and nursed him back to health. I’m still working on compensating you for all of that.”
Randall cleared his throat and mumbled a thank you. It was apparent to Gunner he wasn’t used to being indebted to anyone, and that was the part that probably bothered him the worst.
The cocktail waitress was quick. In less than ten minutes Dax had printouts of the layout of the house for everyone, and they all gathered around the table to look at them. “Okay, so it looks like the house has a state of the art security system that’s going to alert the police as soon as it’s breached,” he said. He looked up at Cody and after studying the plans for a few seconds Cody simply nodded. “We’re going to talk the waitress into letting us use that laptop. Anyone have any more cash?”
“I didn’t think you were going to wake up. That would have made this a lot less fun.” Tamara had opened her eyes to the sight of Eddie Martini at her bedside. At least the big perverted freak was gone.
“Fun?” she said in a weak, raspy voice. Her lips hurt and she could tell they were swollen when she tried to speak. “Is that what we’re doing here, having fun?”
