We put the stocking masks over our faces and Atlas slid the key card jimmy rig whatever the fuck it was he had on him into the lock and pressed some buttons on the keypad, the light flicked green, the lock disengaged, and we ghosted into the room.
“The fuck!” dude cried and we were on him. Atlas buried a shoulder into dude’s solar plexus diving onto him in a tackle onto the bed and I had the garrote around his fuckin’ neck before he could do shit.
He tried to flop like a landed fish but wasn’t having much success under Atlas’s weight.
“You got two seconds to come clean and tell us why you ditched that woman in Florida,” I grated.
“Shit, don’t kill me!” The guy wheezed. “I told Rodney I couldn’t do it! She was nothing like he said she was, man!”
Atlas and I exchanged a look.
“What about her husband?” I demanded, tightening the noose.
I let him breathe just enough to get it out.
“He asked me! He asked me, man! Had this whole story about how she framed him up – wanted me to fuck a confession out of her and fuckin’ do her man but I couldn’t fuckin’ do it! She wasn’t like that at all! Rodney – he’s fuckin’ crazy! I don’t understand it. He was a stand-up normal well-adjusted guy when we served together!”
“This is how this is gonna happen,” Atlas grated. “You gonna take this ass whoopin’ and then you’re gonna stay far the fuck away from Rodney’s ex-wife.”
“He’s already got a group of guys, man. It’s too late, I left her there to protect her!”
Oh, shit…
We finished interrogating the motherfucker. Atlas put the fuckin’ hurt on the guy and we finished him with a blackjack crack to the skull that was lights fuckin’ out.
Wordlessly, we left just as stealthily as we came, got our asses back to our room and fuckin’ scrambled looking shit up and calling back home.
* * *
“To what doI owe this pleasure?” Ruthless, the president of the Voodoo Bastards out of New Orleans answered the next morning.
“Hey, yeah, Ruth – it’s Atlas and Radar,” I said.
“Well, hell boys. How do?”
“Actually, I’m calling for a big ass favor,” I said.
“How’s that?”
I explained the situation. About how he and his crew were the closest to my girl and I would mightily appreciate it if he could send a couple of his crew to watch her and her house while I got on the road.
He listened patiently and was silent for a few heartbeats. I thought I’d lost the connection.
“Ruth?” I asked.
“Yeah, hold on, I’m dispatchin’ a couple of my boys right now. Text me her address,” he said.
“Thank you, Atlas and I are getting on the road right now.”
“Alright then, they’ll see you there. Y’all ride safe now, y’hear?”
“I owe you Ruth, big time.”
“Seems we do a lot of that owing each other back and forth, and it’s no worries! It all comes out in the wash.”
“I surely do appreciate this,” I said. “You have no idea.”
“Just to be clear, man. Is this a club favor or a personal one? And by that, I mean does Cutter know you’re a callin’ me?”