by Zoey Parker
The bike was just a few feet away and I grabbed the helmet, tossing it to her. “Here! Put this on and climb on! We're getting out of here!”
She fumbled the helmet and it clattered to the ground. She quickly picked it up and fumbled with the helmet's strap until the buckle clicked into place.
“Hang on!” I said, revving the engine. I felt her arms squeeze my torso so hard I thought she might crack a rib. We sped away just as the squad cars pulled up in front of Maggia's.
I rode up LaSalle and turned at Chicago Avenue, roaring toward Lake Shore Drive. Beyond that was the highway, where we could disappear from the city for a while and I could find out what she knew about Jester, if anything.
The girl's arms gripped me even tighter, until it was hard for me to breathe. I could feel her hot, panicked breath blasting against my ear. “Let up, sweetheart!” I gasped. “You're gonna choke me out!”
“I don't want to fall off!” she yelled.
I should have guessed she'd never been on a motorcycle before, and I counted myself lucky that I wasn't feeling her piss all over me and the bike seat, given how scared she probably was. “Fine, then how about not yelling in my goddamn ear?”
“Who are you?” she asked. Her voice was still too loud next to my head. “Who were those guys?”
“My name's Rafe,” I replied. “And as for those guys...”
As I rode north past the Belmont exit on Lake Shore, a pair of black sedans veered onto the highway behind me. Men in suits leaned out the passengers'-side windows, aiming handguns at us. One of them squeezed off a shot that hit my left rear view mirror.
I jerked my hand away from the handlebar for half a second and almost lost control of the bike. The girl shrieked in my ear.
Fuck, I thought. While Angelo was calling his lawyer, his bald amigo was probably making a call to their Mancuso friends up north to keep an eye on Lake Shore Drive in case we came up this way.
“...they were friends of these guys,” I finished.
There was another gunshot and the bullet hit the ground next to my front wheel, chipping the pavement. The girl yelped again. I could tell we were in real trouble this time—the drivers were going steady and the gunmen were taking the time to aim properly.
Worse, the shots were starting to panic the drivers around us and ahead of us, causing them to brake and swerve erratically. It was forcing me to slow down and drive more defensively, which was letting the Mancuso cars close the distance.
“Remember when I told you to let up earlier?” I grunted. “Fuck that. You're gonna want to hold on as tight as you can for this.”
She gripped my sides again so tightly that I could almost feel my ribs crack.
Before I was sent to Potawatomi, I'd been known as one of the Reapers' all-time best riders. Some were faster than I was and others could ride harder for longer, but when it came to pulling off berserk, balls-out, daredevil stunts, no one could touch me. I'd amused myself and the other guys by popping spinning wheelies, riding makeshift obstacle courses, or jumping my bike over rows of cars at the junkyard.
I hadn't had a chance to practice any of that stuff in seven years. I gripped the handlebars and prayed that it would be just like riding a bicycle, except more badass.
I sped up and started weaving between the cars as they skidded and honked. One of the sedans chasing us was forced to stop as three cars in the lane ahead of it collided with each other in a messy pile-up. The coupe ahead of the other sedan started to slow down, but the sedan accelerated, smashing into one of the coupe's tail lights and sending it spinning off to one side.
In my remaining rear view, I watched as the sedan continued toward us relentlessly, closing the distance. Its engine roared like a tiger bearing down on its prey. Its passenger leaned out again, leveling his gun at us.
I turned my attention to the cars directly ahead of us and found one with a smoothly-inclined trunk and rear window. I rode up to the back of the car and tried to match its speed perfectly.
This'll be a neat trick if I can pull it off, I thought. If they suddenly decide to swerve or brake, this could end with a wrecked bike and broken necks for both of us.
I reared the bike back on its rear wheel, hearing the girl scream again. I had never done this with someone on the back of my bike before, and for a dizzying moment, I thought Rosie would flip over backward and smear us both across the highway.
Instead, Rosie balanced perfectly on her back tire for a glorious few seconds that seemed to stretch out forever.
Then the front wheel came down, catching the trunk of the car ahead. The tires gripped and Rosie was pulled forward over the roof of the car with us on her back.
I accelerated and Rosie jumped off the top of the car, hitting the highway just inches away from its front grille. I pushed the bike as hard as I could to widen the gap, then risked another look at the rear view. The car screeched to a halt and the sedan plowed into it.
The road was clear ahead of us.
We'd lost them.
The girl was still looking at the chaos behind us. “Those poor people!” she gasped.
I let out a grim chuckle. “It was them or us, sweetheart,” I said. “Besides, they look like they've got plenty of insurance against car wrecks, whereas I ain't insured against bullet wounds.”
“My name's not 'sweetheart!'” she said. “It's Jewel!”
“Jewel?” I asked, smirking. “What are you, some kind of stripper? You dress up as a secretary for your act, is that it?”
“I'm not a secretary, I'm a receptionist,” Jewel answered. “And no, I'm not a stripper! Jesus, do I look like a stripper to you?”
No, but you've got the bod for it if you feel like changing careers, I thought. In spite of the frustration over how things went down with Angelo and the adrenaline jolt from the high-speed chase, I had to admit that the feeling of her tits pressed against my back was starting to grow on me.
“What the hell's going on?” Jewel asked. “Where are we going?”
“You're in the middle of something very bad,” I said. I turned onto an exit that would take us north toward Wisconsin. “I'm gonna take you someplace where you'll be safe. You just have to trust me and do what I say, okay? And when we get there, you have to tell me everything about what you saw. Otherwise, I won't be able to help you. Understand?”
I was trying to sound just scary enough to keep her around, without scaring her so much that she'd run off. Most of all, I knew I had to keep her in the dark as much as possible to keep her off-balance.
“Okay,” Jewel said into my ear. “I wish I could just go home.”
“You'll get to go home when all this is over,” I assured her, not really caring whether she'd get to or not. When this was over, she could testify to the feds and join the Witness Protection Program, or run off and join the circus for all I cared.
But I needed to make Jester pay, and that meant finding out what she knew.
Chapter 7
Jewel
From the moment Rafe looked into my eyes and told me to come with him to the moment we entered the motel room, I had a strange feeling like I was watching everything around me happen on a TV screen.
Part of my brain shrieked and babbled, terrified, as I was chased by men with guns and bullets flew around me. It screamed at me that this was all just too much to handle and insisted that I had to shut down completely. It said that the only sane response would be to just give up, to stop running and lie down on the ground and either wake up from this nightmare or put an end to it by simply dying. It told me that I wasn't strong enough to deal with this or fast enough to run from it, so it must be the end of me.
But another part calmly flicked on the TV screen and said that gunfights and car chases and handsome strangers were things that happened to other people—actors who'd been filmed on sets and sound stages far away, long before the images reached me. Since I'm just a boring person with a normal life, this part of my brain reasoned that I couldn't be actually experien
cing these insane things so obviously, this was a movie, a show, a roller coaster, a dream. Something it was okay to gasp and scream and bite my lip through, but an artificial threat, something that would pass harmlessly if I could just be brave and get through it.
So I held on tight and screamed and trusted Rafe to somehow get me through it all. But thankfully, the detached part of my brain mostly remained in control and informed me that none of this was real while the panicked part kept gibbering with fright and begging me to hyperventilate, go into shock, pee myself, or pass out.
Once we were a few miles outside of the city, Rafe pulled into an exit and rode past the familiar hotel chains, stopping in front of the shabby-looking motel. The neon sign buzzed and flickered like a bug zapper, spelling out the words “The Hidey-Hole Motel.” The outer walls were gray wooden siding that looked mildewed. The windows were cloudy with fingerprint smudges and the scrubby, dismal grass out front was littered with clumps of old dogshit.
“This is safe?” I heard myself ask. My voice sounded like it was coming from a long distance.
“Safer than it looks,” Rafe said, putting down the bike's kickstand. “You can probably let go now.”
I looked down and realized that my arms were still clamped around his torso so tightly that my fingers were going numb. I pulled them away sheepishly and got off the bike, walking toward the motel's front office.
“Forgetting something?” Rafe asked.
I stopped in my tracks, thinking hard. Was I? With everything I'd been through in the past hour, I doubted I could even remember my own name. Slowly, I turned around, taking a guess at what he meant. “Thank you. You saved my life, and that's...”
Rafe actually threw his head back and laughed. For a bizarre moment, I felt like Alice in the looking-glass world. How could he possibly laugh after being shot at? Had everything turned backwards? Why couldn't I just wake up from all this?
“The helmet, Jewel,” Rafe said, pointing to my head. “I mean, I guess you can keep wearing it if you really want, but the front desk clerk will probably think you're a special-needs kid or something.”
Embarrassed, I reached under my chin and undid the strap, handing the helmet to Rafe. He hung it from one of the handlebars, still shaking his head and chuckling. Part of me hated being laughed at while the other part kept insisting that it didn't matter because none of this was real.
“Come on,” he said, heading toward the motel office. “You should probably let me do the talking.”
The office was decorated in a hideous beige that briefly reminded me of Bertrand's office. The surface of the front desk was ugly chipped formica, and there was a scuffed, tarnished table bell resting on it. Rafe smacked the nub on top to ring it, and the sound almost made me jump out of my skin. I realized that my mouth was starting to taste vaguely like copper, with a sour undertone that almost seemed like ozone.
The man who waddled out of the back room looked like a squashed pumpkin dressed in a flannel shirt and overalls, with a stained and crusty hunting cap on his head. His lumpy face was covered in warts. When he saw Rafe, he smiled, revealing crooked yellow teeth.
“Well howdy, Rafe!” he exclaimed in a raspy voice that sounded like a rusty hinge. “Ain't you a sight! I didn't know you'd graduated from ol' Gray Bar University.”
“Hey Chucky,” Rafe answered, smiling. “Yep, graduated with honors. Got my degree right here.” He pulled up his shirt, displaying a faded blue tattoo on his side with the letters “P.C.C.” with a knife running through them.
As shaken up as I was, I still couldn't help but notice how well-defined his abs were. His muscles were tight and chiseled, like a statue in a museum.
Chucky wheezed with laughter. “Yep, that's the one! Got me one just like it, only I don't wanna show you where it is, on account of how it might scare the lady.” He turned to wink at me. “Now what can I do ya for?”
“We've got some heat on us, so we need to bed down here for the night,” Rafe said. “You know the drill...”
“Yeah, sure. If anyone comes by, I never met ya an' ain't never seen no one who looks like ya,” Chucky nodded. “Who're we expectin'? Cops? Staties?”
“Could be either or both,” Rafe said. “Could be worse, too, come to that.”
“Fair enough,” Chucky replied. He handed over a room key. “Room 27. It's got fresh towels, cable, the whole nine.”
“Thanks, man,” Rafe said, reaching for his wallet.
Chucky waved his hands at him. “No, now come on! You know yer money ain't no good here, boy! Bard's always taken good care of me so you guys can use this place when you gotta.”
Rafe leaned in and looked at Chucky with intense eyes, his voice lowering almost to a whisper. “This ain't no Bard thing, Chucky.”
Chucky looked confused for a moment, and then the smile dropped from his face. He peered at Rafe solemnly. “Huh. I see. Well, then I reckon you'd better hang onto that cash anyway, just in case you need it later on. You c'n square it with me some other time.”
“Thanks,” Rafe said. He turned to me. “Let's go.”
I followed Rafe to the room. It was small and musty, with a pair of twin beds, a TV on a rickety table, and a narrow door leading to the bathroom.
“Okay, you get settled in,” Rafe said. “Go splash some water on your face or something, watch some TV, and try to chill out. I've got one more quick thing I need to talk to Chucky about, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. I'm taking the key so I can let myself in. If anyone knocks on that door, I don't care who the fuck they are or what they say they want, you just keep the door shut and scream your motherfucking head off, okay? I'll hear it and I'll come running.”
Without waiting for me to respond, Rafe left, shutting the door behind him.
I looked around at the dingy surroundings. The grubby reality of them was too much, and suddenly, I realized that this had all really happened to me after all.
I had watched a man get murdered. I had been shot at. I had been on the back of a motorcycle as it jumped over a car, all while other men chased me and tried to kill me.
My knees turned into water and I collapsed on the floor, the dust from the cheap carpet filling my nostrils. I opened my mouth and a loud sob escaped me as hot tears stung my eyes. My lungs felt like they were being squeezed by invisible hands.
This was no dream, and I had never been so frightened in my entire life.
Chapter 8
Rafe
I walked back to the motel's front office and tapped the bell again. Chucky emerged from the back room again, holding an old porno magazine in one hand and zipping up his overalls with the other. He looked annoyed for a moment until he realized it was me again.
“Damn, sorry!” Chucky said. He tossed the magazine aside and briskly wiped his hands on his shirt. “Thought you two was all squared away. What'sa matter? TV don't work?”
“I'm sure it works fine,” I replied. “I just had a couple questions I figured you could answer for me, since I've been away so long.”
“Uh-huh,” Chucky answered, looking me up and down. “Reckon ya wanna know 'bout Jester an' that fucked-up niece of his, since they had ya locked up, right? Lookin' fer a li'l payback? Heck, I knew them stories 'bout you beatin' that girl up an' so forth were just a buncha bull. I known you a long time an' seen you do plenty a' fucked-up stuff, but the day you smack the fuck outta some girl like that? Sheeeit, that's the day I eat my hat.”
Chucky may have been a redneck slob, but he wasn't stupid. With his whole corn-fed, aw-shucks routine, sometimes it was easy to forget that. His motel was used by other gangs besides ours, so he kept his ear to the ground. “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks. So Jester still rolls with the Mancusos, right?”
“Ayuh,” Chucky nodded. “He ain't pullin' no triggers for 'em no more, neither. Got hisself promoted. Got plenty've people to do his dirty work for 'im. Hell, he's practically a ghost out on the streets these days. No one sees 'im anymore, 'cept fer Abby an' a couple've his closest
guys who pass along his orders to the rest.”
Shit, I thought. “So if he ain't on the streets anymore, where is he?” I asked.
“Pffft, dark side a' the moon, fer all I know,” Chucky shrugged. He slid the office window opened, hocked, leaned out to spit, and closed it again. “Some folks say he's maybe involved in somethin' deeper than the usual mob shit, but them's mostly campfire stories. Anyone who claims they really know for sure is fartin' way above their ass.”
“How about Abby?” I prodded. “Where's she hang out these days?”
Chucky was already shaking his head before I could even finish. “Ain't happenin', kid,” he said sadly. “Any time she goes out, Jester sends about a dozen guys with her an' they never take their eyes off 'er. He ain't takin' no chances that some other gang's gonna grab 'er an' ransom 'er. You get close enough ta point a gun at 'er, an' ya may as well put it in yer mouth instead. 'Sides, they gotta be lookin' out for ya, now they know yer outta the slam an' all. You ain't exactly no master of disguise, neither. May as well have 'biker' tattooed on yer fuckin' forehead, even without yer patch.”
