by Hazel Parker
“It’s so boring and drab.”
“I anticipated as much. No one’s going to be calling him to do TED talks anytime soon.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the reason I called,” I said.
I gulped.
“Oh? What did you call for?”
Remember, he’s not your supervisor. He’s your friend. Speak the truth.
“Well, sir, you said it’s not your business if I was sleeping with Dom. I do, though… I do… I like him, I guess is the easiest way to put it. But I know that being with him is going to cause trouble. I want to be both a cop and be with him, but, well, I don’t know. I don’t, I’m repeating myself, blah, I’m sorry, it’s just—”
“It’s alright, deep breaths, Saunders,” he said with a mild chuckle. “First, just breathe. You need a clear head if you’re going to take care of this. Second, don’t ever quit the police force. Ever. You’re one of the best there, Saunders, and that suspension won’t be remembered by anyone in five years if you keep doing what you’re doing.”
He really did have a way of making me feel so much happier. I was still freaking out a little, but “a little” obviously paled to what it had been before.
“Now, as far as what you have done with Dom. There are no rules about who cops can and cannot date. You know that. But you also know that if you engage in behavior that brings about scorn and ridicule to the police force, you can be in trouble. That is a pretty broad scope of action, and it’s not specific to you. So what does that include? Well, let me tell you, Saunders, it depends entirely on what the perception of the day is.”
He gave one of those light chuckles that just made being around him feel so easy and so simple.
“Back in the day, we could make jokes that would offend even the thickest skinned of people today. If you dropped someone from today into when I started thirty-some years ago, they’d have all sorts of complaints about the workplace culture and whatnot. In any case, though, this is all to say that the perception of what you and Dom would be is magnified, and yeah, if you were seen with him right now, you’d be in big trouble. But what people focus on changes almost daily. No one’s going to remember this in two months.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts, Saunders,” he said. “No buts. As soon as media attention dies down, then by all means, go and do whatever it is you and Dom want to do. But until then, lay low. You see?”
I nodded my head, sat on the couch, and felt a certain relief wash over me. Gutierrez was saying, without really saying, that it was possible. In the short term, we’d have to be covert and hidden from the public eye. That probably meant we’d never be able to go anywhere other than his apartment—and by we, I meant I’d have to go there, we couldn’t go there together.
But there was still hope. There was still a lot of hope.
I just right now had one wish—that wherever Dom was, that whatever he was doing, it wasn’t stupid or dangerous or attention-grabbing.
Because if it was any of those things, it didn’t matter how careful or low-key I was.
Chapter 19: Dom
Two hours passed as I stood at the border of California and Nevada.
I was completely by myself, doing nothing other than checking my phone to pass the time. This was a bold, vulnerable move, but the longer that I was there, the more certain I actually felt about having made the move. Again, what did we have to lose?
I knew Splitter and I had connected. I’d done it too many times with clients to not know when, metaphorically speaking, the sale was made. Now I just had to seal the deal.
Off in the distance, finally, the sound of a lone motorcycle approached. I sat on the wide median between the two lanes of traffic. At this hour, on a Thursday, traffic was not that heavy; though the occasional eighteen-wheeler drove by, creating a bit of a drag, it wasn’t anything that some steady feet couldn’t handle. I looked on the horizon and saw the solo light of a bike heading my way. To make sure he saw me, I turned on my light.
It took about a minute of nervous anticipation, but finally, the bike slowed down, rumbled over the median, and stopped about ten feet away from me. I turned my light off, and he turned his.
There was a brief moment as we walked forward to each other that I realized he could have easily pulled a gun on me right there and shot me dead. I walked forward with my hands slightly raised, a small smile on my face, my way of showing that I was no threat. But I had barely remembered what Splitter looked like before this meeting.
“What’s going on, man?” I said.
“Hey, man,” he said. “Good to fucking see you again. Glad you came up with this idea. Trace was actually very much in favor of it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, said something about how the more peaceful he can make it, the better.”
He doesn’t want bloodshed either. He’s just not as afraid or as encumbered by politicians as we are to use it.
“In any case, I’m about thirty minutes ahead of the rest of my boys, so he said I had until then to negotiate with you and figure something out. That work?”
“Definitely,” I said with a smile. “You seem like a smart and reasonable cat. I think we can figure something out in ten minutes, really.”
“Oh, confident one, huh?”
I just laughed in my most easy-going voice possible.
“Yeah, well, let’s be real. We share the same title. We share the same values. There’s no reason that we can’t figure something out that leaves both parties happy.”
“Very true man, very true.”
I nodded and decided it was time to get down to business. It was time to push for what I wanted.
“So I know Richard and Trace have discussed the issues over and over, but I’d like for us to just start from the beginning. That way, there are no assumptions left out, and we can work fairly and on common ground.”
“For sure.”
“So tell me what you all want.”
Though this seemed easy, and it was, I was trying to very carefully make sure that I controlled the negotiations. This meant letting Splitter explain his side of the issue first. By allowing him to put his concerns and desires first, it allowed me to frame my concerns and desires around his. It was unlikely that I would change anything, but there were ways of saying things that would let me look better.
“Well, man, I’d say the big thing for us is that we gave a lot of blood to help you in your fight against the Degenerate Sinners; would you agree?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I know Krispy and BK put themselves at some pretty big risks to help.”
“Yeah, right, exactly. And we didn’t ask for anything upfront; we just did it because Jane and your guy, Richard, are family. Blood runs deep in the Saints.”
“One hundred percent, and as it is for you guys, I’m sure, we consider our brothers family.”
“You get it, man,” he said. “I knew the two Saints were alike. Anyway, yeah, and so now, we feel like we can merge these two groups into one, you know? Like we want you to run your thing, and we want to run our thing, but if we officially merge, then we can watch each other’s backs, support each other as needed; you know the drill.”
“For sure, for sure, and I’d say for probably ninety percent of that, we agree.”
I felt it critical to make sure that he felt like we weren’t that far apart. It was easy to fall into nihilistic beliefs if we both believed that we only agreed on fifty or thirty percent of the statements made.
“Anything else I should know, man?”
“Nah, I think that’s the big thing. For us to just take ownership of it.”
“Definitely,” I said.
And this was where I knew Richard was going to hate me, but it was going to beat the alternative.
“So for us, one thing that we value, like you guys do, is independence.”
“Hmm,” Splitter murmured, indicating his agreement with my statement.
“We don’t want to have to answer to anyone. We don’t w
ant to answer to the law, to politicians, to anyone like that. We’ll use them to help us if need be, but we have our own code of ethics and morals, and we aren’t dealing with anyone who tries to interfere with them. Agreed?”
“Oh, easily,” Splitter said. “One hundred percent agreed. We had to fucking deal with some politics about a year ago. BK took care of it, but it was a real fucking bitch to deal with.”
“Exactly,” I said.
I had to hope that everything we’d said up to that point gave me the freedom to say what came next, because it was going to be the first time in which I explicitly rejected what was being discussed up to this point.
“Here’s the deal though, man. We want to help you, and I think we can give you something beyond just a lump sum. But independence isn’t just something we want from the white-collar folks. We want it from everyone. Including, well, the Saints in California.”
“OK.”
He at least hadn’t outright told me to fuck off, though it was clear he wasn’t in as much agreement with this as before.
“We share the same name and the same code of ethics, but I think we have very different styles otherwise. You guys seem like you’re much grittier, blue-collar, down to Earth than we are. You run a car repair shop, right?”
“Yep.”
“Yeah, see, that’s what MCs are supposed to be.”
I didn’t necessarily believe that statement—MCs could be whatever the fuck they wanted to be to the public—but it was a bone I was willing to toss Splitter.
“We’re just a bunch of shithead, spoiled kids who got lucky because one of our members—a woman, no less, which is another way we differ—had the idea to turn a shit building into a destination spot. I don’t know how it worked, but it fucking did. We operate by strength in exclusivity. We’ve never had more than fifteen members, we don’t want to have more than fifteen members, and every night at The Red Door, we turn away some filthy rich people and famous people because they don’t have the means to get in. You guys are much more welcoming and embracing.”
I paused. Splitter seemed to like what I was saying. I wanted the words to settle a little more in.
“So in that regard, I’m not sure that complete merging makes sense. You know? It’s like if you merge two companies with two very different cultures. It just doesn’t work.”
“Yeah, but…”
I almost interrupted him. Fortunately, though, he didn’t seem to have a real argument back.
“However, I don’t think it’s fair to you guys either to just give you a lump of cash and call it a day,” I said. “That would just separate us after the payment, and then we’d go about like we didn’t work with each other. When the reality is, we can both benefit each other with an ongoing connection of some kind.”
“Yeah, man,” he said.
This is working. So far, so good. But here comes the big shot.
“So this is my proposal to you.”
I normally would have let Splitter make his first proposal very explicitly, but he more or less already had. “For us to just take ownership of it” was his proposal. Just because he hadn’t used those exact words didn’t mean we didn’t both know what he wanted.
“We’ll give you thirty percent of our profits on a monthly basis,” I said. “In addition, we’ll give you ten grand up front. We’ll pay you by the fifth of every month. Hell, we’ll send someone in to do a delivery if you want so that we can treat it as a chance to build relationships. What do you say?”
“I mean, man, it’s good, but Trace wants full ownership,” Splitter said. “And I get where he’s coming from. We didn’t give you thirty percent of our resources, you know? We committed quite a bit to help you.”
“But it wasn’t a hundred percent.”
“True.”
That was big. Splitter may not have even realized that he had just admitted his point was invalid. I was obviously more experienced at this, though that didn’t mean I was going to be able to just walk all over Splitter and have my way with him.
“I don’t know what percentage it was, and frankly, it doesn’t really matter, because the important thing is that you helped us and now we want to help you,” I said. “And, dude, here’s the thing. In all honesty, thirty percent is enormous. We pull in six figures a month. Six fucking figures! And while I know the car repair shop is more in the style of an MC, there are no car shops that are pulling in six figures, most especially in a small town.”
“Very true,” Splitter said.
He let out a long sigh.
“You’re a compelling man, Dom,” he said. “I don’t know that Trace is going to accept that, though.”
“Alright,” I said. “Forty percent and fifty grand up front.”
That was stretching me to my breaking point. Though, to be fair, anything that would not have killed our profits completely would not have been the breaking point. Our margins were enormous, in large part because exclusivity brought about enormous profits. I didn’t know the exact number of the top of my head, but I knew I could give above fifty percent of the profits and we’d still be in the green—and that was factoring in paying the club members.
“Jesus,” he said.
“And like, look, let’s be honest here, right?” I said.
This was another risk I was taking—to state what no side was willing to say out loud.
“As bikers, we aren’t the greatest at keeping the peace. We are a little more aggressive than the general population. If we can’t come to terms, it’s not like we’re both going to walk away. Things are going to get aggressive, maybe even violent, maybe even bloody.”
There was nothing in Splitter’s eyes to suggest that I was wrong. He may not have expected negotiations to go this way, but that was why I was determined to win this.
“We don’t want bloodshed. We’ve seen too much of it, and frankly, we’re kind of over it.”
I didn’t mention that we had pressure from the politicians. That wasn’t something that was going to come up here at all.
“And I know you guys lost members to the Sinners, too. You don’t want this to continue. How bad of a look is it going to be if we fight our own?”
“You know, funny thing is, man, I fucking worried about that,” Splitter said. “Trace was coy when I asked him if it would come to that. He doesn’t want it either, but I think he’s more certain of going after it.”
Splitter bit his lip.
“Forty percent and fifty grand up front?”
“Yes, sir.”
He’s considering it. Holy shit. This might actually work.
“How soon could you get the fifty grand over to us?”
“Honestly, probably very soon, but just for the sake of making this a smooth process with fair expectations on both sides, I’d say by next Tuesday night. We close on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so we’ll have all the cash we would need.”
“Damn, that’s quick.”
He’s definitely not used to figures like these.
“Fuck, though, Trace wanted it all.”
This is literally all you have to overcome, and then the rest falls into place. Come on, Dom, get past it.
“I know, and I’m not saying Trace will accept it willingly. But you and I are doing this because Trace and Richard can’t come to an agreement. There’s no reason to figure out why; that’s something for the books to figure out. We just know they can’t. It sounds like you and I have and what I have offered is fair.”
“Yeah.”
I tried not to let my eyes go wide. Splitter had let the word out casually without even realizing it.
“Just… fuck…”
I bit my lip. Thank God it was dark out—Splitter probably couldn’t as easily see how much I was worried that he was going to figure it all out and just walk away. He was going to realize how little I could do or how little my club could do in the event the California Saints were willing to push us to the brink.
“Ah, fuck man!” Splitter said, laughing.
“I like the deal. I just don’t want to disappoint Trace.”
“You’re good friends with him, right?”
Splitter nodded.
“You really think your best friend is going to be pissed when you’re hauling in an extra mid-to-high five figures a month in income just for having helped us against one enemy?” I said. “You think he’s going to sacrifice his friendship over that?”
“No.”
“Right,” I said. “He’s not. Because he’s your brother. You’re family. Family doesn’t turn its back on each other. Family knows mistakes happen, but family comes to the defense.”
I took a deep breath.
“Your friends will be here soon,” I said.
I have to wrap this up before Trace is even visible or audible. Otherwise, Splitter is deferring to him.
“When they show up, we won’t be able to come to a deal, and things will get ugly. So this is what I say. Forty percent every month of our profits. Fifty grand up front. You help us as needed—which won’t be often—and we’ll help you as needed.”
Splitter looked back, sighed, and looked back at me.
“One hundred grand up front, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
I had no hesitation on my part.
“Deal.”
I offered my hand. Splitter stared at it for a second, leading me to almost wonder if he was going to back out.
But then he shook on it.
All the tension in my head vanished. We had a deal.
“We’ll get the hundred grand to you within two weeks,” I said.
“That’s fine.”
I wasn’t worried about that. In fact, I even felt like we could get the hundred grand to him in one week, and it would be our way of making a sort of peace offering to the California Saints—like we recognized that negotiations had gotten tense, but by doing this, we could move past that and back to the good relationship that we had.
“Damn, just like that,” Splitter said. “Man, I’m not going to lie, I thought we were going to have to fight you guys.”
“Right?” I said, able to laugh. “Glad this is done and over. I, for one, could do without another bullet being fired for some time.”
