A Cuddly Toy (The Bent Zealots MC Book 5)

by Layla Wolfe

  I’d know that man anywhere. The threadbare T-shirt, the clunky Timberland boots, his ripped buck stature when he put his hands on his hips.

  Fremont Zuckerman had partnered with the EPA and was giving them a site tour.

  “Is that Fremont?” asked Galileo, his voice fresh and clear like a kid on Christmas morning.

  Was I going to make an ass of myself? Wave my arms around wearing a cassock, jumping up and down wearing a dog collar? Did priests behave in such a manner?

  Was that even a question?

  Of course I was going to do that.

  “Fremont! Fremont!” I yelled, jumping up and down wearing my dog collar.

  Galileo followed suit, although Twinkletoes just beamed from ear to ear.

  Fremont stared at us, a deer in the headlights. The EPA guys milled elsewhere, nosing around the fulsome river. Slowly, like doing a striptease, he removed his official, wired helmet. My heart nearly melted at his soft hair rippling in the barely-there breeze.

  He’d come back to help us.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  FREMONT

  “God will destroy those who destroy the earth.”

  Why was that phrase stuck in my head? I’d even called my mother in Bed-Stuy and had asked her if that was a belief of ours. Naturally, that risked being roped into a whole droning lecture on Talmudic principles complete with a rant about the neighborhood girl I should have married who now had four children. Four children, in today’s day and age, seemed an extravagant waste along the lines of what I was trying to ask her.

  Aren’t we taught not to waste or litter, to minimize our footprint? That if we destroy our planet with emissions, overpopulation, and pipelines, that God will destroy us?

  But all I got was a pedantic harangue about my abject failure to woo Nicole Poliakoff, a girl I hadn’t spoken to since high school. Yes, I’d definitely missed the boat when I’d let her slip through my fingers! She’d married Uri Melchior straight out of school, which I could’ve done because Uri continued on to get a master’s in chemical engineering, just like me, from another Ivy League school, Harvard. Our lives had followed similar patterns, with Uri going to work for ExxonMobil, jet-setting to Qatar and Kuwait, not slogging through Congolese jungles like me.

  My mother didn’t understand that I enjoyed the slogging. I actually liked the physical toil, getting my hands dirty in the soil, if you will. It made me feel that much closer to the core of my work, instead of playing with theoretical models and computer simulations.

  But I was lonely back in Aurora, so I tolerated my mother’s rant. In a way it made me go gooey inside like a warm caramel, just to recall that someone loved me, even if it was only my mother. Kelly allowed me to pick up some things but only with her supervision.

  So it went. After being given the bum’s rush off the rez, I worked my fingers to the bone, feeling like I had to make up for some shortcoming. I mostly knew I’d done nothing wrong, other than had an orgasm behind a stockpile, educated the Diné about the contamination on their land, and perhaps fallen in love with a gay priest.

  Wait. What was that one little thing about educating the people about the pollution on their rez?

  Of all my sins, that was probably the biggest one in Ozzie Avery’s eyes. It was the one that affected him financially. Other employees would’ve kept the extent of the contamination between themselves and U-238. But no, I had to go telling Indians that they used irradiated tailings to build their homes, to water their cattle, to fertilize their crops.

  If that was my big crime, then why was it the last one to preoccupy all my thoughts?

  I paced back and forth in the small living room of my rented condo. I had plenty of work to keep me busy 24/7 but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. I was just analyzing chain of custody forms from soil and water samples taken from areas I knew were not the most contaminated, making graphs and spreadsheets from the data. Twinkletoes hadn’t yet finished gathering forms from the samples the kids were drawing around the rez. I was drinking scotch. The data manipulation was so simple any intern could’ve done it. I’d wanted to ask Ozzie why I was being punished, but the last few times I’d tried to call his assistant, the guy had blown me off completely. I’d never get in to see Ozzie again.

  Pakistan. It was seven-thirty at night in Aurora, meaning it’d be eleven AM in Islamabad, where Ariella was currently stationed.

  “Bro!” she cried. “I just got a weird phone call from a guy named Galileo.”

  Galileol! My heart went into such overdrive I feared I’d have a heart attack. I’d received one extremely businesslike voicemail from my beloved Noel a few days prior, and that was the sum total of communication from the Colorado River rez. “What’d he say?”

  “He said he worked with you on the rez. ‘Worked’? Fremont, what the fuck’s going on? Have you already been booted off the rez for finding too much contamination?”

  “Yes,” I admitted, irritated. “I’m back in Aurora working a fucking desk job. Avery came down in person to inform—oh, after he sent that Dragan goon to check up on me, I kid you not, Ariella!”

  “The James Bond guy with the gold teeth?”

  “Well, I don’t know about gold teeth. But he’s definitely got brass knuckles and a snarl like distilled malice.”

  Ariella exhaled pot smoke. “Too many comic books,” was her assertion.

  “No, he was there, Ariella, waiting in the parking lot during a solid downpour, watching me get on a motorcycle with another guy.” I paused to let this sink in.

  I was sure Kelly had told her the Village People story. There was nothing to stop Kelly from repeating that with great prejudice. What the fuck, she’d blathered it all over U-238. Why not my sister?

  Ariella just echoed, “With some guy?”

  “Yeah. A priest. An Irish priest whose dick I’d just sucked.”

  She sighed so deeply she wound up in a coughing fit. She sounded about to choke, matter of fact. Had I finally succeeded in shocking her? Would this be the end of my sister, choking to death because her brother was a massive pervert?

  “Ariella!” I cried, although she held the phone at arm’s length. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. Come back!”

  She finally whimpered, “You sucked off a priest? A real one, I mean? Not just a guy dressed up as one?”

  It was my turn to sigh. “A real one, all right. Let me tell you, Ariella. I think I’m in love.”

  “I’m hoping he’s not Catholic.”

  “No. Episcopalian.”

  “Almost as bad. Fremont! Where do you get yourself into these things? Are you on the gay road now? Have you given up women? Kelly told me you thought you were bi, you were bi-curious and were just experimenting.”

  “Well, apparently it’s a lot more than that, Ariella. I mean, who the fuck would risk falling in love with a priest, for God’s sake. Talk about a high-profile romance.”

  “Is he . . . out?”

  I frowned. “Not really. He had a couple other men and got in trouble for it, one was an Indian on a rez he was assigned to, so that was improper, and another was a fellow priest, an exorcist.”

  “Exorcist?” she sputtered. “Fremont, I have to hand it to you. Hands down, you’ve got the most exotic life. I might travel to exciting cities, but I get stuck in labs. You get to live the life. Now tell me. This priest. Is he hot?”

  I laughed. We were laughing together, my sister and me! “Oh God, yes. Think of Daniel Day-Lewis.”

  “Last of the Mohicans Lewis or My Left Foot Lewis?”

  “Mohicans. Only with salt and pepper hair.”

  “Long hair like that?”

  “Yes. He usually wears it in a ponytail. A messy, half-ponytail. He’s about forty, from Ireland via New York.”

  “A regular bog-jumper.”

  “A regular Mick,” I said fondly.

  “I want to see him.”

  “What?”

  “Send me a photo.”

  I had some in my phone, of course. I o
nly looked at them a hundred times a day. I’d taken them under the guise of photographing a well, or some natives that Noel happened to be standing near. There were a precious few I’d dared to snap when it was just the two of us, and those photos had an intimacy that was almost scary. Even though I wasn’t in the photos, you could tell right off the bat this priest was hot for someone, probably the photographer. I was proud as hell of those photos.

  “How do I know you’re not gonna send them to U-238?”

  “Because I loathe Ozzie Avery.”

  “True enough. Okay, stand by.”

  Ariella stood by while I sent her some of the group shots. I hesitated on the photo of Noel, dog collar askew, both arms running alongside the back of my trailer’s couch. His head was tilted slightly, and he had that cockeyed grin that spoke volumes about his inner workings. He knew something, and it was up to you to find out what it was. At the last second, I shot that one off too.

  “Ariella? You there?”

  It took her a long-ass time to get back to the phone. “Yeah,” she breathed. “Fremont. I am impressed. You’ve got to hang onto this one.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I haven’t spoken to him since being kicked off the rez. Why should I? Our whole affair, if you want to call it that, was based on our mutual trek, our odyssey to clean up the rez. Now Ozzie’s put the kibosh on that, what do we have in common? I’ve just got my tail between my legs because I allowed this shit to happen.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  I snorted. “I don’t see any other way. You know U-238 is my life.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” Ariella repeated. “For this hot priest? I’d move heaven and earth, excuse the corniness. Is that what this Galileo was calling me for? I know I called the priest’s number once to get you. He obviously gave my number to Galileo.”

  I mulled that over. Ariella was right. “That means he doesn’t want to call me directly. What did he say?”

  “He said the rez, the church congregation, and the priest really wanted you back. No one knew why you left.”

  My heart lurched with fondness and gratitude. “Text me his number, I’ll call him back.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  Ariella snorted impatiently. “And call the hot priest?”

  But there was no fucking calling any hot priest. I didn’t even call Galileo. He’d probably be standing right next to Noel and would hand the phone over. I’d been ordered off the rez and there was literally no going back. In fact, I was going to Bone Valley, Florida the following week. How could I carry on even a cheesy fling with Noel from such a long distance? I was G.U., Geographically Undesirable.

  So, I just got drunk, went into the office when I could’ve just as easily worked from “home,” and failed to work out. Gyms reminded me too much of Noel and what I was missing. There was a constant sharp ache in my chest every time I tried to breathe deeply. It was the pain of knowing I’d lost something irreplaceable.

  But then Twinkletoes called me. I have to credit him with turning my entire life, and the future of the rez, around.

  “Nothing’s the same here without you. The only reason they haven’t kicked me out of the trailer is because I carry all the equipment, and I know everyone. Speaking of. Joe Bloodgood, that’s Senior to you, stopped by. He was doing some online researching.”

  I had to chuckle. Picturing the medicine man surfing online was so incongruous with what I knew about him. “Did he figure out what they used the uranium for in the 40s?”

  But Twinkletoes was serious. “He found a thing called a Superfund that’s been used to clean other rezzes. The EPA has the power to request the funds. Looks like Superfund can be used to remove or replace the poisoned houses.”

  “Hm. Yeah. I’ve heard of that. But it takes years to get that funding in place.”

  “Not necessarily. I followed Joe’s lead and found some intriguing as hell shit. Each state governor can put one hazardous site on the priority list.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well. Get this. The president of the Navajo Nation is head of a sovereign government.”

  “Ahiga,” I whispered, mentioning the name of the senior council member.

  “Ahiga,” confirmed Twinkletoes.

  My heart sped up. I was getting one of those shivery, naughty feelings you get when you just know you’re about to do something life-changing. “Has Arizona put any other site—”

  “Not for forty years, since they cleaned up Monument Valley. I’ve typed up a draft letter for Ahiga to sign addressed to the EPA. You know how to dress it up with fancy, correct terms, but I’ve given you the general gist.”

  I didn’t even need any general gist. Superfund gave the EPA the ability to clean any contaminated groundwater that spread out beyond a mining plot. Above all, Superfund gave the tribe the power to go after mining companies to pay for anything they didn’t.

  U-238.

  I turned in my two-week notice the next day, emailing it to Ozzie so I wouldn’t have to look at his painted clown face again. I cited no excuse, just that I was going to work for myself as a consultant. I knew the two-week notice would be turned down. U-238 didn’t want to give anyone a chance to ruin anything, to throw a monkey wrench into any project. They escorted quitters off the site.

  Which was true. I called my contacts at the EPA immediately and told them the story of the Colorado River Reservation. Telling it all over again fresh like that gave me courage, insight, balls. I saw the tale through the raw, vivid eyes of my EPA friends. Their gasps, cuss words, and sounds of awe made me realize I had more than a great story on my hands.

  I had a brand new, sparkling start for hundreds of peoples’ lives.

  When I leaped from the EPA chopper, I swear I had no clue Noel and those guys would be there.

  Over the windy whir of the chopper blades, I was saying into the mic, “This is where women used to conglomerate Sundays. They’d wash their clothes stained yellow by uranium. I think it explains kidney disease and cancer.”

  “Could be, could be,” said Rob LeClerc, my main contact. “This, and the cattle and crops, and the homes you say they built with tailings.”

  “Another storm is blowing in tomorrow,” said another guy, his voice tinny in my ear.

  From the corner of my eye fluttered some objects. When I turned my head, it took a split second for my brain to make the connection. Noel. My limbic system told me “love,” and so my heart lurched. All the synapses finally firing correctly, I identified that it was the love of my life jumping wildly like a cheerleader. A couple of other guys I could care less about flanked him, leaping more or less enthusiastically, but I made a beeline toward Noel, yanking off my helmet.

  “Noel!” I shouted joyously.

  He strode as close to the bank of the rushing river as he dared, his black robe flowing. His agonizingly handsome face contained a divine glow. This fulsome, transcendent aura enclosed him in a special, protected ambience. We stood practically on tiptoes at our separate embankments, maybe forty yards apart.

  “Fremont!” it sounded like he shouted. “You came back!”

  “I’m back, buddy!” I yelled awkwardly. “Nothing could keep me away! I don’t work for that moron Avery anymore. I work for these guys!”

  Well, as the guy who knew the most about the contamination extent, I was an independent consultant for the EPA. I was giving them this overview tour and then setting up a meeting with Ahiga and the other council members. It would make sense if Noel and Twinkletoes were a part of that meeting.

  “Who’s this?” asked Rob, coming up alongside me.

  “I knew it!” cried Galileo. “I knew you’d come back! You weren’t leaving us to rot at the hands of a creeper wearing a V for Vendetta mask waving a ten-pound weight!”

  Rob said, “That’s an oddly specific thing to say.”

  I wasn’t really listening to anyone else. “We’re going to form a committee. We’d like you to be on it.
”

  Rob said, “This must be the priest you told me about? He’s very, uh . . . unconventional.”

  In his ecstasy, Noel paced back and forth on the bank. “I love you, Fremont! You know I’m in with anything you say.”

  “I love you guys, too!” I bellowed back clumsily. What could I say? How could I express myself shouting over a raging rusty river with all these other men listening? “Twinkletoes, I want you to get out of that trailer immediately. No associating with U-238.”

  “Ten-four, boss.”

  Noel shouted, “Come to the rectory for your meeting. I’ll get Ahiga, Bloodgood and those guys.”

  I’d never agreed to anything so fast in my life.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NOEL

  I’d had the invitation sitting in my messages for about two months. Why didn’t I delete it after I met Fremont?

  For one, I wasn’t sure where our affair was heading. If he was simply bi-curious, it didn’t bode well for any sort of long-term relationship, which was what I craved. I wanted stability, not a different sleazebag every weekend.

  For another thing. I sort of relished the idea of taking Fremont to Sailor Jack’s. It was a good jackoff fantasy of mine. He would look like a ripped, manly outdoorsman in a pair of tight boxer briefs, nothing obscuring his velvety clavicle and pecs other than his discreet, hammered silver cross of David around his neck. He was by no means a practicing Jew, but I adored the idea of meshing with someone of a different faith who could bring balance to my often one-sided life. At Sailor Jack’s, he would be hugely admired, powerful in his virility that was usually hidden. Sometimes while masturbating, I’d shoot before I even got to the part where I, or someone, took his mouthwatering penis into the open air.

  We had meetings. Oh, yes, we had meetings. First with Fremont’s EPA contacts, then with the tribal council. Fremont had me proofread a letter from Ahiga to the EPA Administrator in DC. That would be all signed, sealed, and delivered before anyone could relax. Then we took a trip up to the Parker High School, where Fredericka was editing Listen to Us. She wanted to film us in a descriptive setting, so back to the rez we went, to the Salomé Valley which was again being inundated with a solid, never-ending downpour.