Bones by the Wood (2 page)

Kong, who was due to hit seventy this year right along with Fletch, looked like a man who loved his food.  He weighed in with his own opinion.  “You’re both wrong.  Fuck the starter.  Who needs that prissy shit?  Get a big ole steak on the plate with plenty of fries and put a pie out after.  That’s all you need.”

Tag raised an eyebrow at Kong.  “For a guy lookin’ like you do a person’d think you’d be more interested in your food.”

Kong’s bushy, brown brows drew down as he looked at the young man.  Tag might have been in his early thirties, but there was something about his wide eyes, and maybe the freckles, that made him look a lot younger.  “Careful kid.  I can still take you in the fuckin’ ring.  Plain old cow never did me any harm.”

Crash snorted in amusement, diffusing the situation.  “Kong, brother.  You eat so much fuckin’ beef you should have fuckin’ horns by now.”

Kong let out one of his booming laughs that could be heard all the way to the coast.

Fletch was pulling on his silver handlebar moustache.  “Have you guys fuckin’ heard yourselves? You know you’re s’posed to be outlaw bikers, right?  Dizz, save me from this shit.  Someone let them watch fuckin’ Come Dine With Me or some shit again.”

Dizzy took a swallow of his beer.  “Brother, I hate to say, but I think they’re all a lost cause.”

“Lord help me, I think you’re right.”  Fletch pushed himself out of the plastic lawn chair with a grunt and turned towards the house.  “I’m gonna take a piss.” 

“I ain’t stayin’ to discuss sautéin’ and flambéin’ with you shitheads.”  Dizzy saluted the three men with his bottle.

“Sounds like you know what you’re talkin’ about, Dizz.”  Crash grinned.

Dizzy just tossed him a wink before he walked away.  He laughed to himself as he heard Kong chuckle as he said, “Course he does.  Problem is he forgets to do that shit to his food and does it to people instead.”

Essentially he was first and foremost a bodyguard for Samuel and secondly Terry, but as well as being the disciplinarian, he also shared the roster of guys who could obtain information or deliver a very visual message using human flesh without losing sleep or his stomach contents.

He made his way over to the remaining knot of his brothers.  He picked up as he approached that Shark, Chiz and Morse were talking engines, a nice, safe topic. Morse was still a little pale and had some trouble with breathlessness, having lost a portion of his right lung to a bullet not two months previously.

Dizzy had discovered a capacity for forgiveness that had surprised him when he’d found out about Shark’s ulterior motives.  That the man had confessed all without prompting or duress was part of it, so was seeing how hard he loved Ashleigh.  It was written all over Shark’s damn face that he’d rather be ripped apart by wild horses than hurt his lady.  The fact that Dizzy had personally branded the man’s skin with a motif of the club as punishment helped some, too, and the Shark had borne his penalty with stoic strength.  The man was a veritable mountain of muscle.  Only Dizzy and Fletch came close in height, but neither man was built in the same way that Shark was.  Where they were lean, and discreetly muscled, Shark was all obvious bulges.

Chiz was basically Paul in miniature, although he only looked miniature when he was stood next to Paul.  Both men kept their heads shaved smooth and, as well as sharing the same love of weightlifting, both shared Dizzy’s ability to keep from flinching when it came to inflicting slow deaths.

Dizzy fell straight into their conversation with ease until Samuel called out that the next batch of ribs and steaks were ready.  His stomach gave an appreciative rumble as he made his way over to the grill. 

A stack of paper plates and napkins and a tub of cutlery on a table by the grill was everyone’s first stop.  They all made way for the women to fill their plates up first as they formed a somewhat unruly line, based mostly on first come first served.

As Dizzy held out his plate for a lump of steak Samuel said.  “Dizz, a word later?”

“Sure, boss.”  Dizzy replied. 

Samuel nodded, and Dizzy took his plate over the table groaning with side dishes to load up on his favorites.  Along with Shark, they’d recently taken an extended trip to Texas to try to sort out the logistical issues that they’d created when they’d exterminated the Rabid Dogs, and Dizzy figured whatever Samuel wanted had something to do with that.  In the meantime, he found a seat with Fletch, away from all talk of ideal dinner parties.  They ate, drank a couple more beers and talked bikes and sports, with a few colorful stories from the club’s history thrown in by Fletch, until Samuel came over and motioned for Dizzy to follow him into the house. 

Samuel led Dizzy into a room that had been given over as a cross between an office and a man-cave for Samuel.  At Samuel’s indication, Dizzy made himself comfortable on one of the well-worn leather sofas as Samuel poured them a couple of fingers of whiskey each from a small bar he had set up in the corner.  Although Samuel rarely indulged, a faint odor of cigar smoke clung to the room.  The tang, along with the scarred, ox-blood colored sofas and dark paneled walls gave the room a warm, cozy feel, even with the sustained efforts of the air conditioning.

Samuel handed Dizzy a glass of amber liquid and sipped his own as he took a seat at the opposite end of the sofa.

“I got a big ask for you, Dizz.  I’ll understand if you say ‘no’, but I want to consider it carefully ‘fore you give me your answer.”

Duly warned, Dizzy asked, “What’s on your mind, boss?”

“This new crew we’re puttin’ together in Texas.  I’d like for you to head it up.”

Dizzy stayed silent, knowing that Samuel wasn’t finished yet.

“You know I voted for Shark to stay in our fold, but I can’t deny that the whole business left me with some serious trust issues.  Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.  Ain’t that how it goes?  I need to know there’s someone I can rely on at my flank, and I can’t think of anyone who fits the bill for this better than you, brother.”

The upshot of their visit across the state line was that the best way to keep the delivery chain of illegal goods from Mexico to Florida going on behalf of the Rojas family was to set up a new charter of the Priests and recruit for it accordingly, rather than try to find a separate club to fill the gap.  Moves had already been made to put feelers out for anyone who wanted in.

Dizzy leaned back and sipped his drink, rolling the glass in his fingers and savoring the burn of the high quality alcohol.  It was a big ask, but it was the obvious one, too.  It was a conclusion he’d been on his way to himself when he’d mused to himself about how they’d decide who out of the prospective patch-overs would be best at the head of the new table.

The fact that he was from the Lone Star state originally had no bearing at all.  He was from the north, close to the border with Oklahoma, and the Priests business was clear down the southern end of the state by the border with Mexico.  He’d been in Louisiana now longer than he’d been in Texas.  He’d been fifteen when his parents had moved, following his father’s job.  He’d struggled to settle in their new home and had been getting into the predictable trouble that dissolute teenage boys do before he’d come across the Priests and decided that all he needed in life was a Harley beneath him and a kutte on his back.  To prove to the club he was trustworthy, he’d settled down in school and to the delight of his parents his grades had improved.  But to their everlasting despair, rather than go to college, he’d apprenticed at the garage and prospected as soon as they would let him.

For more than half his life he had been devoted to this club, and for almost half that time his life had been devoted to the protection of his President. That wasn’t about to change now, but the how of it would alter a little.  The more he thought about it, the less Dizzy liked the idea of having a full set of almost complete strangers backing their plays.  He wasn’t sure he had the first idea about building a charter from the ground up, but he knew that he’d be able to get plenty of advice from Fletch and Kong, who’d been inaugural members of the Priests along with Samuel’s father.

For his part, Samuel was also reclined comfortably, stroking his goatee between sips and waiting patiently for Dizzy’s response.

“For what it’s worth, boss, I reckon you’d do well to move Chiz into my spot when I leave.”

Samuel’s face split into a broad smile.  “I’m gonna miss you, brother.  But I can’t tell you how relieved I am to know you’re gonna have the club’s back, my back, over there. And yes, Chiz’d be my first choice for the Sergeant’s spot, too.”

“Ain’t like you’re never gonna see me again.  I ain’t never thought I’d ever take the top spot, here or anywhere else.  Gonna need all the wisdom you’ve got to give, boss.”

“And you’ll have it, no question.  But, brother, I wouldn’t have asked this of you if I didn’t think you were right for it.  You’re one of life’s natural leaders.  All you need to know are the technicalities.”

“I hope you’re right.”  They clinked glasses in a toast.  “I’ll do my best not to let you down, boss.”

“I know you will, Dizz.  I know you will.”

Thea Colby knocked on the heavy, granite-grey door of the Dusky Kitten strip club, rapping a spot next to the black and silver “Sorry We’re Clothed” placard, and waited to see if anyone would let her in.  Despite the morning being almost over, she wasn’t hopeful anyone would be inside.  All the same, she was hoping that Annelle Beaumont, the House Mama, would already have arrived to ensure everything was in place for their early afternoon opening.

She heard muffled steps on the other side of the weighty door,
and stood in front of the peephole so whoever was there could get a clear view of her.  She heard the clicks and thunks as various locks were disengaged, and when the door cracked open it was Annelle standing on the other side. 

“Thea?  What you doin’ here, hon?”

“Hi, Nell.  Can I come in?  I need to chat.”

“Sure, hon.” Annelle opened the door wider and motioned Thea inside.  Thea stepped into the murky hallway that was the unprepossessing entrance to the club and waited for Annelle to lock the door behind her.

“Not in trouble are you, hon?”  Annelle asked as she led Thea down the hallway and through the next set of double doors into the main room of the club.

As dark and dim as the hallway was, the main room was bright and light, even with only half the house lights on.  In a couple of hours the room would be bathed in a neon pink glow from the strip lighting under the edge of the bar and around the podiums and from the pink-shaded pendant lights that hung from the ceiling.  Thea didn’t have to worry about slipping, her Converse had no quarrel with the polished tile floor, but she did have to weave between the chairs and tables, which were all in a state of disarray.  The hum of a vacuum cleaner clued Thea in as to why everything wasn’t in its usual pristine state, but she couldn’t see the cleaner.

Annelle led Thea through the room, through another door and down another short corridor to her office.  By Thea’s best guess, Annelle was somewhere around the sixty mark, but she had never seen the older woman without a pair of outrageously high stilettos or a sharp suit, both of which highlighted her curvy, but tight, figure.  Even at the Friday night parties at the Rabid Dogs MC’s clubhouse, the most casual Thea had seen Annelle get was discarding her suit jacket.  Only her shoulder-length, copper-colored hair, carefully colored to disguise the grey, seemed to defy her efforts at control, remaining stubbornly wavy.

Annelle waved Thea towards the high-backed chair she kept opposite her desk for visitors.  Thea sat down and dropped her fringed satchel bag by her feet.  She automatically ran a hand through her long, dark hair and fluffed her bangs.  She wasn’t one to normally feel self-conscious, but something about Annelle always made her feel scruffy in a way that few people did.  She didn’t resent the older woman for it; it was simply part of Annelle’s aura of authority.

“So?  Trouble?”  Annelle asked as she took her own seat in the luxurious office chair behind the polished walnut-colored desk, the same color of wood that was used throughout the club.

“No.  No trouble.”  Thea leaned forward in her seat and dropped her voice even though they were the only two people in the room and the door was closed.  “Nell, what happened to everyone?  It’s been two weeks.  I ain’t heard shit from Elvis, and when I took a trip up to the clubhouse it was shut up tight.  Didn’t look like anyone was around.  Last I heard from him, Elvis told me they were headin’ over for some club shit in Louisiana.  He ain’t answerin’ his phone, and I ain’t heard from him since he texted to let me know he’d got there okay.”