Page 71 of Justice for Radar

“How far is Huntsville from here and when are visiting hours?” I asked.

“About three hours and tomorrow as a matter of fact,” Dom said, his eyes sparkling cold in the punishing heat of the day.

“Stellar, tonight plus three hours should be plenty of time for you to make up your mind,” Atlas said.

“Excellent! Meet back here at six a.m., I’ll have Raptor, Washout, and one of my other fellas take you on down.”

I nodded and held out my hand, Dom clasped forearms with me and I gave a shrewd nod. “I thank you kindly for opening my mind up to the sheer number of possibilities I said.”

He nodded and said, “After what you told me, we’re more than happy to help, partner.”

I grinned and soon after, we parted ways.

Atlas looked over and said, “Back to the house?”

I nodded.

“You know, I’d sure like to see the Alamo while we’re here. Think your lady would be up for getting out of the house?” Atlas asked.

I smiled and nodded. “Wonder if Collier and LaCroix have any interest,” I said.

“Only one way to fucking find out.” Atlas fired up his bike and I followed suit. It was a short ride back to my woman’s house and I was grateful for that. I didn’t want to be without her for long if I could help it.

When we made it back, we jumped the curb and pulled into her back yard just as Collier was finishing up backing her wasband’s truck into the driveway.

“Hey, that didn’t take long,” Collier called in greeting as we came out around front, closing up the gate in the fence to the back.

We didn’t want to leave the bikes out front for anybody to fuck with and with the garage full, this had been the next best thing. That, and if anybody were thinking about pulling some shit – we wanted some element of surprise.

“Yeah, we gotta go back out tomorrow for this – last ride sort of a thing,” Atlas told him. “We were wondering if y’all had any interest in doing a little sightseeing while you were here. Thinking about taking a trip out to the Alamo here in town get Radar’s little woman out of the house.”

Collier looked thoughtful. “Let’s see what La Croix thinks. I know I’d like to see it. I’ve always wanted to see shit like that, the OK corral, all that old-school cowboy shit.” He grinned and if I had to bet, he’d played the Marshall or the Sheriff or whatever to a bunch of cowboys. It was a cute thought. It sure as fuck beat all the princess bullshit I’d had to put up with when it’d come to my girls. Not that I’d honestly minded it too much. The tea parties had been fun, but fuck if being Prince Charming hadn’t fucked with my head a little.

Being an adult playing kid’s games had its moments, you know?

Inside, we found La Croix on the couch watching some fuckin’ soap opera on television. while Jussy was perched on her desk chair, working some digital magic on her computer screen with that drawing tablet of hers. I honestly didn’t know how she did it. I barely had the hand-eye coordination to play GTA on the console.

“Hey,” she said with a false brightness, worry causing a tightening around her mouth and eyes.

“Hey,” I said with brightness and went to her, bending to kiss her.

“How… how did things go?” she asked, and I smiled and shook my head. She nodded and I caressed her beautiful cheek, her skin smooth under the rough pad of my thumb.

Atlas disappeared, likely to take a piss or something, and Collier was bent over the back of the couch pitching the whole idea of sightseeing to La Croix who had those creepy tattooed eyes of his turned in mine and Jussy’s direction. It was some kind of fucking crazy, the dudes who tattooed their sclera. Even fucking crazier they did it in prison with fucking pen ink or whatever other shit they could source. I didn’t know La Croix’s story on the sclera tats – he hadn’t had them a few years back when I’d last seen him. Back when we’d rescued Faith. I’d missed him when the Voodoo Bastards had come to Ft. Royal for spring break last year and I’d missed out going to NOLA for some fun the year before that. Atlas and I both had… bounties that’d needed to be done took precedent. One because he was achi-mopiece of shit. The other becausedamn– that was a lot of money.

“Atlas wants to see the Alamo,” I told my girl in a hushed tone. “Seems to me, you could stand to get out of the house… wanna play tour guide for us and take us?” I asked.

She smiled up at me faintly and raised her eyebrows.

“You do know that it’s likesmackin the middle of downtown San Antonio, right?”

“No shit?” I asked.

“Mm-hm, not kidding. I almost couldn’t believe it myself when I saw it the first time. It’s also tiny.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep, but if you guys want to go, I’d be happy to take you – still you want to see something we should take the Mission Road.”

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