As he took a sip of the hot brew and looked around, Paul realized that the doors to the Chapel were closed and that Jimmy, the President, and Giles, the Vice President, were missing. It wasn’t unusual for them to discuss some business before bringing it to the rest of the table, usually the major or more complex matters. Paul was glad of the extra few minutes so that he could drink both his coffee and his whiskey before taking his seat.
He’d finished his coffee and half the whiskey when the doors opened and Giles motioned everyone inside. Paul threw back the rest of his drink and followed his brothers to the inner sanctum. The Chapel room had originally been constructed by partitioning off a section of the main room, so there were no windows, ensuring that it was oppressive and dim regardless of the time of day.
Giles had already resumed his seat on Jimmy’s right. Jimmy’s deeply lined face gave him an air of permanent concern. His brows were always drawn over his bright eyes. Paul figured that having to parent such a young table would weigh on anyone. Giles simply looked irritated as everyone filed in chatting and laughing. He looked like he could have been a brother to Paul. He was only marginally shorter in height and packed only slightly less muscle mass, but it wasn’t for lack of effort. They often worked out together. It was their black eyes that made everyone think they were relations, and that was only enhanced by the fact that they both shaved their heads down to the scalp.
As soon as everyone was seated and relatively focused, Jimmy ran through the formalities of calling the meeting to order, before updating the table on the outcome of the latest run.
“I know y’all are already well aware, but all those stuffed bunnies got to where they were s’posed to go and we didn’t get no hassle. That’s about as good as these things get.”
Giles continued, “We’re waitin’ on details of our next ride out. No reason to think it won’t be the usual, probably a month or so. We can concentrate on our business closer to home ‘til then.”
“Travis, how’re we doin’ elsewhere?” Jimmy asked.
Travis, the only other member at the table close in age to Jimmy, and Treasurer of the club, outlined their current financial position. “Elvis and Rabbit, boys, you still owe some dues. And Elvis, king or not brother, you still ain’t paid the fine for bein’ late to the table last week. Don’t make me wait for it or I’ll double it.”
“I’ll settle up tomorrow. I’ll get it to you before noon.” Elvis mumbled, looking suitably embarrassed.
Rabbit did not look embarrassed. Paul didn’t think there was anything on earth that could embarrass Rabbit. “Sure, it’s on its way.”
“How’s the pussy collective doin’?” Jimmy asked Rabbit when Travis had finished his report. Jimmy was referring to the number of strip clubs owned by the MC that were located across the southern half of the state. They were probably the only ones in south Texas that didn’t have religious nuts patrolling with placards outside. The god-fearing folk trying to save people’s souls were aware that the MC had no compunctions about sending them to meet their maker early if they got in the way. It made for an advantage over their competitors. Rabbit was the point of contact between the MC and the clubs.
“They’re all doin’ just fine. Good turnover. No problems with the girls beyond the usual bitch-slappin’ and whinin’ from the usual suspects. Lucy’s back in town after her tour with Orchid, if any of you fellas missed her and wanna pay her a visit.”
“I like Lucy.” Cross leered. Cross was a single dad, his eight-year-old daughter Jennifer had been his world since his Old Lady, Kelly-Jo, had abandoned both of them. Paul wondered if it wasn’t some sort of futile attempt at revenge, rather than taking advantage of the opportunity, that was driving Cross to plough through the women associated with the club since Kelly-Jo had left.
“Yeah, well I like to keep my floss in the bathroom.” Garfield, the club Sergeant at Arms, named for his ginger hair and beard, responded.
Paul kept his opinions to himself. They were talking about one of the local girls who kept things au naturel and seemed to enjoy a steady client base who were in favor of the natural way of things. It wasn’t his scene, but to each their own.
“It’s so fluffy I’m gonna die!” Cross squealed for effect.
“Dude, did you just quote Despicable Me?” Elvis asked incredulously. Elvis was one of the newer patches. Most of the older members thought his obsession with the King’s music, to the point of attempting to keep his hair in a patent black quiff even when wearing a brain bucket, was as amusing as all get out.
“It’s on loop in our house. It’s Jenny’s favorite film.” Cross replied defensively, then his expression changed and he leaned forward, grinning widely. “Wait! You know it well enough to know I’m quoting it and you’re calling me?”
“Well it’s a favorite of Thea’s too.” Elvis tried to shrug the point off.
“Bro, my girl is eight. If it’s your girlfriend’s favorite film too I have to question the legality of your relationship.” Cross smirked.
“Boys. Do you think we can get some more business done now?” At the sound of Jimmy’s frustration the joking around the table came to a sudden halt. The average age of the table had decreased significantly since Paul had joined the club almost twenty years before. Many of the older members had patched out or patched into non-outlaw clubs over the past ten years. There was usually an exodus after any trouble resulting from their deal with the Rojas family and the Priests. Most decided that it was too hectic for their peace of mind. They didn’t like the constant threat of turf war with the Mexican and Colombian cartels or that the cartels weren’t above going for families when seeking retribution. The younger members generally did not have women and children to worry about and enjoyed the fast pace and excitement more, but Paul swore that sometimes it was like trying to organize a group of toddlers.
Jimmy turned his attention to Paul. “Shark, brother, I think we got something to raise here if that’s good with you?”
“Yeah, boss.” He had no problem with laying this out in front of his brothers; in fact he would welcome their views on it. He looked around the table. “I had a call from Charlie, from the Priests.”
“Oh yeah, how’s his leg doin?” Garfield interrupted.
There was raucous laughter around the table. The story of how Charlie had injured his leg had made it to Texas before Charlie was out of the hospital.
Paul smiled. “He’s good. Be in the cast for another two months at least though, maybe three, then he’ll need some physical therapy after that before he can ride again. He wanted to know if I was interested in joinin’ their table.”
Jimmy spoke into the silence that had fallen utterly and completely across the table. “Yeah I had a call from Sam. Your time on the road give you opportunity to think on an answer?”
Paul took a beat. He had been thinking about it. He had no reason to leave, but then he also didn’t have that many reasons to stay. It wasn’t like he had a wife and kids anchoring him. Apart from the club, the area itself had nothing but bad memories for him. He would take a bullet for any one of his brothers, but he didn’t have any deeper connection with any of them beyond the leather on their backs. Jimmy had been a sort of surrogate father, but always a little distant, more like an uncle. Giles was more of a mentor than a friend, and the others actually knew very little about him or his history. Charlie, on the other hand, had been his friend, his best friend, his only friend, for years. He’d prospected for the Rabids, but before he patched into the club Charlie’s aunt had gotten sick and his father had moved to Louisiana to care for her and Charlie had gone with him to help out.
“The club is my home. Only home I’ve ever known. I know that we’ve got some snags, that the lack of space at the table is puttin’ boys off startin’ to prospect. If you need me to make way at the table I will.”
“You know we don’t wanna see you go. But there’s an opportunity for you there, see something else besides the dust here. It don’t havta be a perma
nent move. They’re reachin’ out for help; they’re okay with you goin’ on loan. How you do it is up to you.”
“Seems wrong to me to do that. If I’m askin’ them to have my back, seems only fair to go all the way.”
Jimmy nodded his head. “That’s a good view. Like I said, it’s up to you how you do it. There’ll always be a seat here for you, brother.”
A spark of disquiet lit in Paul’s stomach. There wouldn’t always be a seat for him; not really, they would fill his before it was cold. That spark helped him make his mind up.
“Yeah, I’m gonna go. I’ll patch over to the Priests.”
“We’ll be sorry to lose you, brother.” Giles voice had the timbre of a forty-a-day smoker, even though to the best of Paul’s knowledge he never touched anything other than the occasional joint.
Jimmy called out. “Right, that’s enough for today.” He looked at Paul. “We’ll discuss details another time.” He looked back round the table. “Be off with you, you load of miscreants.” He banged the gavel which preceded a significant rise in the volume of chatter as voices fought to be heard over the scraping of chairs and the tramping of boots.
Paul had half risen out of his seat when Jimmy’s low voice cut through the melee. “Paul. You got a minute for us?”
Neither Jimmy nor Giles had risen from their seats. With a nod to Rabbit’s questioning look, Paul resumed his. Rabbit nodded back and, as the last person to leave the room, closed the doors behind him.
Jimmy waited. Paul wasn’t sure what he was waiting for; everyone had gone, but he heard the ticking of the clock on the wall as it counted out the seconds in the near silence. Eventually, whatever stars Jimmy was waiting on to align slid into place.
“Brother, you’ve been a part of this club a long time. You’ve shed blood for us, and you’ve spilt it in the name of the club, more than most. I’ve got a big ask for you now, son.”
“What do you need?”
“It’s good that you want to patch over to the Priests. That’s good. That’s gonna gain you a lotta trust.”
Jimmy’s cryptic reasoning made Paul uneasy; it wasn’t helped by Giles’ continued silence. He looked between the two men who were staring intently at him.
“What’s up, boss?”
“We need you to do one last job for us, but it won’t be as a Rabid. Once you’re in the fold, we need you to take out Samuel.”
The first thing that Paul understood as he recovered the ability to think through the shock was that if he refused this request he would not see another sunrise. No matter what he promised, Jimmy and Giles would not let him live after revealing their play like this if he wasn’t on board. The second was that it was a bizarre request, the Rabids and the Priests had always had a healthy relationship.
“Can you tell me what’s goin’ on that you need me to do this?” Paul asked. Jimmy and Giles shared a look. It was Giles who spoke next.
“The Tails up north came to us with an offer. They think between us Texas clubs we could run these packages down I-10 just as efficiently. We could be the primaries ‘stead of the middle men. We’d get a bigger cut of the profits.
“Would the Rabids be patching Tails to make this happen?”
“Yeah, that’d be necessary; but we can make that right at the table. That’s the advantage of having a load of pre schoolers sit here every Friday.” Jimmy grimaced.
Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Now he had to patch to the Priests; taking this task on would be the only thing that would guarantee his life. In a strange way it made the decision easier because if he was successful, it wouldn’t be the Rabids that he’d be returning to, it would be a different club. Whichever way he looked at it, that feeling of home, of family, that he’d found in the club was crumbling at a rate of knots.
He responded the only way that he could. “You got a timeframe you need this to happen in?”
Jimmy smiled before he answered. “No, not particularly. Sooner rather than later would be good, though. But, brother, this isn’t a suicide mission we’re sending you on. We want you back at this table. However long it takes you to figure out a way to do it that doesn’t get you dead is fine.”
Samuel Carter’s life for his. He didn’t know Samuel Carter. His President was asking him to complete a mission. It looked like Charlie’s phone call just happened to be opportune, or not, depending on whose side of the equation you were on. Paul nodded slowly. “Okay. Consider it done. You want to go over those details now?”
Giles answered. “No, brother. We got time for that. Go out there, get a drink, get a fuck; relax some. We’ll work on the finer points another day.”
“Will do.” Paul pushed himself up and away from the table. Jimmy and Giles were looking hard at him, but they didn’t have to say anything. No one needed to say that the conversation was not to be discussed with his brothers. They wouldn’t have asked this of him if he was such an idiot that they would actually have to verbalize that advice.
Since neither Jimmy nor Giles had moved from their seats, Paul closed the doors behind him when he left the Chapel. When he looked around the main room he found the carnage of the Friday night post Church party already well underway.
Travis liked to start his night with head and progress from there, and he wasn’t all that shy. He was already slumped comfortably on one of the ratty sofas with a girl on her knees bobbing away between his spread thighs. Cross and Rabbit had commandeered one of the other sofas and were in the middle of an animated discussion. At this stage of the night it was probably about bikes, but who knew. It could just have easily been about the attributes of their favorite strippers.
Garfield was perched on one of the bar stools, a glass in his hand and a bottle of Jack at his elbow. Dana, one of the fresher looking club girls, was draped around his shoulders, speaking at his ear. She was probably trying to persuade him to make a night of it with her. She never turned a patch down, but it was known that she had a particular soft spot for the SAA.
Elvis was playing pool with a hangaround. Despite having a girlfriend, he’d probably sneak off into the dorms to get head later. As the youngest patch, and considering the ribbing he got about his devotion to his hair, he tended to keep his activities with the girls behind closed doors for fear that one of the other patches would see something to make a joke of. Sloth was behind the bar, whirling like a dervish to keep up with the requests for whiskey, tequila and beer. Two of the girls were taking turns to attempt to sling themselves around the stripper pole. There were no experts in tonight. The girls who worked in the clubs were too valuable to not be where the paying customers were, so Friday night was strictly amateur night in the clubhouse.
Paul hadn’t moved from the spot just in front of the doors, and no one seemed to have noticed. As he took in the scene before him he knew he could not sit amongst his brothers this night. There were aspects of business that weren’t widely discussed, but he’d never had to keep something this big from them before. This action hadn’t been voted on, and in Paul’s opinion, it should have been. He needed a moment to set his poker face before he could sit with his brothers and be easy and affable with them.
The fatigue of the long ride began to seep properly into his muscles, combined with the heavy weight of the mission he’d been given; it propelled his feet to begin to shuffle forward towards the dorms. He had a small apartment on the edge of town, but he stayed in his room at the clubhouse at least as much as he went home. ‘Home’ wasn’t much more than a couple of rooms with the appropriate furniture, a television and stacks of CDs and DVDs. He wasn’t much for interior design or decorating if he didn’t have to, so he’d never even changed the original white paint.
As he reached the doorway that led to the dorms, he felt a small, cool hand on his arm, too small to be one of his brothers. Sure enough, when he looked over his shoulder, one of the girls, Britney, was smiling coyly up at him.
“Hey, Shark. You want some company?”
He thought about te
lling her ‘no,’ but the chaotic thoughts in his head were getting louder, and a quick fuck would silence them for a while until he had the energy to untangle them.
“Sure, darlin’.”
She linked her slim arm into his, her hand resting on his tanned forearm as they walked down the corridor to his room. She wasn’t a pixie, but she seemed doll-like compared to his muscular, six-and-a-half-foot tall frame. Paul unlocked the door and ushered her through. He waved at the bed.
“Give me five, darlin’. I need to wash the road off.”
“You want me to scrub your back?”
“No thanks, darlin’. Maybe later.”
He left her lounging on the bed and started to strip as he made his way into the adjoining bathroom, only pausing to shrug off his kutte, fold it, and leave it on the desk that served as a dresser. He showered quickly. The water supply at the clubhouse wasn’t extensive enough to enjoy the long, hot soaking he craved. He’d wait for that until the next morning, when he would head out to his apartment.
Blood in the Water (Kairos) Page 8
