“Load me up!” I told her playfully.
“That’s what she said,” came the older woman’s quick reply.
I couldn’t stop the laugh that burst from my mouth. Grandma Jean was unlike anyone I had ever met before, she was amazing. She was also smart as hell, and I was reminded of that when she narrowed her eyes at me.
“Your hair's a mess, son. Some woman been running her fingers through it?”
“A gentleman never tells,” was my only reply. Was my hair messed up? Who knew? I had been romping with Billy, but I didn’t want to come out and talk to Jean about it, Jesus.
Although, Jean was smarter than she looked. She averted her gaze as she hung bags on me as though I were a pack mule. “Did you see her arms?” Jean asked quietly.
“I did, but only quickly, and she didn’t tell me what happened. It didn’t feel right to pry, and she was already so self-conscious about them.” Would Jean tell me the secret of the burns on Billy’s arms? I couldn’t be that lucky. “There are so many of them,” I continued. “I can’t imagine Billy staying still long enough for someone to do that kind of damage to her.”
Grandma Jean was silent for a moment, then she looked me square in the eye and said: “You would be surprised how much pain you can take to save someone you care about.” And then she turned her back on me and walked up the porch stairs to the house, leaving me to follow her with my arms loaded down like Atlas’ shoulders and wondering what the hell she was talking about.
I was still helping Jean put food into the pantry and refrigerator when Billy came bounding back down the hallway.
“They’re going to the zoo!” she said excitedly. “They’re going to the zoo this weekend, and now I know exactly what they’re doing, who is going to be there, and what our plan is going to be.”
“How do you know?” I asked her, puzzled because she seemed one hundred percent confident. I’d heard the surety in just that one word: zoo.
“Field trips, remember?” Billy looked at me like my brain was running on slow and she was waiting for me to catch up.
“I called Denny after we…after our talk,” she said. Smooth recovery, I thought to myself and grinned at Billy to let her know at least I remembered what she was trying to avoid saying.
“And this Steven guy doesn’t monitor what Denny says to you?” I was confused about the whole thing because if I were conducting drug deals, I would for sure not be letting anyone know the wheres and whens of them.
“I told you,” she said darkly, her face becoming guarded. “Steven doesn’t consider me a threat. He knows I won’t do anything. Not anymore.”
I didn’t understand that because she was here now, clearly concocting a scheme to throw a stick in the spokes of this guy’s scheming and manipulation, but what did I know? I thought maybe she’d elaborate.
She didn’t.
“I told you, Steven is an asshole, but he’s a stupid asshole. He has half the people in this town and several others a town over in his pocket, and he doesn’t have to be super careful. If Denny is going to the zoo, then I know when, what time, and more importantly, who is going to be there. Steven is a creature of habit. I know how this is going to go down, but it is going to take some maneuvering.” She took a deep breath and looked at me, her chin tilted in defiance. “It might get a little sketchy.”
7
A little sketchy is the understatement of the year, I thought to myself as I recalled the words Billy had said to me not more than three days prior. A tunnel? Who sends a kid into a dark ass tunnel alone at night? What the fuck.
Apparently, the zoo had previously used an underground tunnel that went from outside the property to the interior. It had been shut down to visitors for years, but was still used as a truck entrance for deliveries. The huge doors I stood in front of looked like they hadn’t been used since eighteen-dickety-two, and as a grown ass biker man, I had to admit, if I didn’t have to go in, I probably wouldn’t.
Unfortunately, I did have to go in.
If the guy wasn’t such a skeevy douche, I would have thought this was a genius operation. Steven didn’t sell to punk kids on the corner. No, he had quite the distribution operation going and apparently the zoo was one of several key locations. The goods got delivered, and money exchanged with two maintenance workers via the underground tunnel. The maintenance workers would then separate out and distribute the goods to be sold to the various delivery drivers who came in and out of the zoo’s old entrance. Some of those trucks came from halfway across the country to make deliveries, so who knew where the product ended up?
Because of the ease of the process, Steven could move smaller amounts more often, and no one would suspect that such a huge network of money operated out of a cartoon backpack.
Steven Colsen was a colossal piece of shit.
He had a sweet gig going, and he must have been pretty confident about not getting caught because he showed up right around the time Billy said he would – about seven in the evening. I knew this because I was squatting in the damn bushes like a hobo when he did finally show. I’d done recon missions before, but there was just something about shoving my six-foot, five-inch frame behind the shrubbery that seemed so ludicrous, like I was an extra in a Benny Hill skit or something.
Little Denny was with him, just like Billy had said he would be. Cute little kid with a bowl cut, but zero expression on his face as he was led to the scary-ass double doors. His little blue tennis shoes had those blinking lights that lit up with every step, and as I watched those lights go off and on, I recognized the tragedy of the entire situation.
A little kid, eight years old, carried a backpack full of drugs.
Blink, blink went the lights on those shoes again.
And because of Billy, I knew his father sent him alone into an almost half-mile tunnel to make a deal with a stranger and didn’t even seem to care if he got out safely on the other side.
Blink, blink.
I watched as Denny continued down the tunnel without even a passing glance back to his father, who’d shut the door on him. He was a damned father of the year, Steven Colsen was, sending his son into that dark tunnel without even a word of encouragement. Then again, why would he offer encouragement? This was about money, drugs, and selfishness. He shut the door tight, got into his shiny Silverado, and drove away. Nothing but a normal Thursday night for this family. No wonder Billy was jumping out of her skin to get Denny out of there, Jesus.
I waited less than five minutes before I followed Denny in there. As long as the tunnel was, I didn’t know at what point the two maintenance guys were going to meet him, and I really wanted to catch up with him before they did. I didn’t want to bring my gun; I didn’t want to have to pull it out in such close proximity to a child and fuck what anybody else said. I was going to need my wits about me, and hopefully, a little teamwork if Denny was amicable.
I caught up with him in about ten seconds. My long legs ate up way more ground than his short ones, and it didn’t look like he was in a huge hurry to get to where he was going. When I finally reached him, he didn’t look surprised to see me at all, just a little wary, like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. The tunnel was still dark, but there were lights, so it wasn’t a complete nightmare. If I was an eight-year-old kid, you probably still couldn’t have paid me to walk down that tunnel alone. Where I stopped walking was right on a curve, so I couldn’t see how far it went.
“Hello, Denny,” I started out. I wasn’t sure how to introduce myself, so I kept it as simple as possible. “My name is Max.”
“Did my Dad send you to check on me?” he asked, but the tiny voice was at complete odds with the dead expression on his face. “I don’t know why. I’m a good boy. I always do what I’m supposed to.”
Those words twisted my guts a bit. Kids shouldn’t have to worry about their Dad sending in someone to double-check if they were selling drugs properly or not. I was resolved to get this kid out of his situation, even if I had to strap hi
m to my bike and ride him out of town.
“I don’t work for your Dad,” I said, crouching down in front of him, so I didn’t look so scary tall. “I know your sister.”
I saw the change immediately as my words washed over him and pure panic set in. Denny’s eyes got impossibly wide, and for a minute I was frozen because I had no idea that the mention of his sister would cause so much fear to take over.
“Are you here to take me away, mister?” The tears did leak out then. His little chest started to rise and fall and I recognized that look. That panic. He was freaking out.
“I can’t go with you, mister, I can’t. I’m a good boy; I always do what I’m told. If I do good, he won’t hurt her again. He won’t do it. He said. He told me, and so I always do what I’m supposed to. Please don’t make me go, mister!” He was whisper screaming so he wasn’t overheard by whoever might be lurking, and his restraint even in the face of absolute fear brought me straight to my knees. I grabbed him and pulled him to me in the biggest bear hug I could manage. Fuck being a scary, mean biker man. This kid was terrified I was going to make him break the rules and his sister was going to get hurt.
I understood so many things in that moment, how Billy could have stood still while someone marked her up like that. It could have just as easily been this little boy with the scars up and down his arms, but Billy hadn’t let that happen. Crazy, brave, Billy fucking Daily.
“Calm down, Denny, calm down,” I said while holding his head against my chest, his little boy tears soaking into my t-shirt and burning right into my heart. “I will never let anything happen to your sister. Okay, buddy? I just saw her like a half hour ago, and we are all working really hard to make sure we can take you out of here.” I pulled away just enough to look him in the eyes and make sure he understood my words.
“Denny, your sister is the toughest lady I know. Do you know she knocked me flat on my butt?” Denny turned his brown owl eyes to me in shock. I knew I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I’d been in his position, but it had happened and her violent streak was becoming a point of pride for me. “She totally did, knocked me flat on my as…er – butt. I hurt for days.” And I had hurt for days, but since he was just a kid, he wasn’t getting the full story that I’d taken a fist to the nuts.
“But, mister,” he said to me, his eyes filling up again, “he hurt her before. He made me watch. I saw it. I messed up and he hurt her bad.” I had to clear my throat at that admission because I gathered from his words and from the way he was hugging his arms in the same way Billy often did, that he blamed himself. Those small, frail shoulders were hunched over like he wanted to disappear, and I hugged him to me again. Fuck it. I wanted to keep this kid so bad, to give him a home and a safe place to play so he could just be a kid. I didn’t have any of those things to give him, and I had no right to offer them, but fuck if I didn’t want to with everything I had in me.
“Denny,” I said, making my voice as firm as I could without my tone being loud enough to travel down the tunnel, “I’m a big, mean, biker man and your sister kicked my butt. If I say that she is strong and not afraid of your dad, then I mean what I say. Do you trust me?” I had no right to ask that of him, but we needed to get moving, so I pushed him a little more. “If you trust me, I need you to nod your head, and then you and me, we’re gonna walk down this tunnel, do the job you came here to do, and walk right out. But here is what is going to be different. Instead of walking to the right and down that road you go down to meet your dad, we’re going to go directly to the old car I borrowed from Grandma Jean, and I’m going to take you to your sister. Then, we will figure out what to do after that because you know what, Denny? You aren’t alone. You don’t have to do this alone. You are a kid, you should only worry about kid stuff. It’s okay to leave this to the grownups, I promise.”
I watched him wipe his nose on the sleeve of his t-shirt in that weird way kids do. He just dipped his head down and his shoulder in, and rubbed the snot right into the fabric. It was such a little boy thing to do that I was once again gripped with the feeling that I wanted to keep this kid safe forever, but all I could do was keep him safe for right now, and I was going to.
For so long, when I’d been deployed, I hadn’t been able to help the kids I’d met. They’d look at me, a hundred questions in their eyes, but unable to communicate their needs because of the barrier in language. But I’d known what they’d needed.
I couldn’t have helped them, though.
I couldn’t bring back their moms and dads. I couldn’t keep the bombs from destroying their cities. I couldn’t do a fucking thing for them, but I could help this one. I could help Denny Colsen, and damn it, I was going to.
“Okay, so we’re a team then, right?” I held my hand out for a shake, then he nodded and gripped my hand, his bony little fingers dwarfed by my giant paw.
“Like wrestlers?” he asked.
“Like wrestlers,” I agreed, getting off my knees and standing to my full height.
“If we’re wrestlers, we have to have cool wrestler names,” I said, trying to get him to calm down. “What would your wrestler name be?” Keeping him occupied with a fun thought allowed me to scan our surroundings. There wasn’t anything to see, the tunnel just stretched on until it sloped into a corner covered in shadows.
“Denny Dynamite!” he said with zero hesitation, reminding me that little kids thought of things like what their wrestler name would be all the time and he had probably been waiting forever to bust that one out. His face had lost that paper white sheen of fear, and he smiled as he gave me what he obviously thought was the best wrestler name ever.
“What would my name be, I wonder?” I scratched my chin, deep in faux thought. I wasn’t disappointed. When his eyes lit up, I was pretty sure we were becoming best friends in this single conversation.
“You can be Mighty Max the Mauler!” he said, eyes sparkling with delight. I pretended to think about it for a minute before agreeing with him.
“Can I go by Triple M though, for short?” I asked. He craned his neck and tilted his head back so he could look at me, concentration on his face as he mulled it over.
“Yeah, I suppose that’s all right. I could also go by Double D to match.” Double D, I thought with a smirk. His sister was going to kill me for that one, but that was okay. Me and Double D, we were a team now. We were going to kick ass and take names. More importantly, we were going to get out of there.
8
I walked as slow as I could with my long legs, but it was still torture keeping myself behind Denny as we made our way up the tunnel. It wasn’t anywhere near as dark as I had thought it was going to be, but the tunnel still had the same level of creepy just because of our reasons for being there. The underground roadway was surprisingly large with enough room for a driving lane in each direction, but Denny walked straight down the middle, seemingly confident no vehicles would be coming in either way. My place was behind him, making sure that it would appear to anyone watching us approach Denny was in charge, and I was just along for the ride. Job shadowing even.
We were about halfway through when we came upon a lone figure leaning against the wall of the tunnel, partially obscured in the shadows. The man was completely average in every way. Bland, nice guy looks, average height and build. Moderately receding hairline and a pair of round glasses perched on his nose. He wore a maintenance uniform with the zoo logo and the name Larry Dugan on the chest pocket.
I wanted to punch his face.
How dare this man with his harmless, nice guy looks be picking up drugs from an eight-year-old in a dark ass tunnel just beneath a place where people brought their families? Meanwhile, while this scum walked around, completely unsuspecting, sometimes people were scared to serve me breakfast in a diner because I was tall, tattooed, and rode a motorcycle. Fuck appearances and fuck this balding asshole. I fought not to let the rage show on my face knowing I had to play it cool if this was going to go well.
Larry was obviously
used to making this pickup, because he looked completely relaxed and there was no weapon in sight. I did have cause for concern though. Wasn’t there supposed to be a second guy? Denny must have been used to it too because he asked right away,
“Mr. Larry, where is Mr. Jason?”
Mr. Larry pushed his glasses a little further up his nose, but didn’t look too disturbed.
“He got a call that your sister was seen running around the outside fence line. He had to check. Can’t have her interfering now, can we? Probably why your dad sent this big fellow in with you.” Larry looked at me with a smirk. “I bet you’d snap her arms like twigs without the slightest hesitation, right?”
I almost felt bad about how fast I dropped him, but not really. The asshole deserved my fist to the side of his head after that comment about Billy. There was no resistance, not even a sound out of his mouth as he crumpled straight to the ground and lay there unmoving. I hadn’t even had to unholster my weapon.
Out cold, what a wimp.
There was no concern or need for protection with these guys. It was almost like taking the proverbial candy from the baby, although Billy being seen and goon number two being dispatched to check things out had put a rush on our mission. However, if Mr. Jason was at the same intimidation level as Mr. Larry, I didn’t doubt that Billy would make quick work of him.
She was an animal.
I probably loved her.
Denny was looking up at me with something like hero worship in his eyes, so I had to say something. I tried to be cool, but I was wholly serious when I told him, “No one talks about Billy like that. Nobody.” He nodded at me, but didn’t say a word, eyes still all big and awestruck. We needed to move. “Buddy, we need to move a little faster than this now, so I’m gonna need you to hitch a ride, okay?” Without waiting for him to answer, I picked him up like a football under one arm, backpack and all, and set off at a run.
Billy Daily Page 4
