Page 137 of Lone Star

“Waco?” Candy asked.

“Let’s not gothere. But yeah, we’ve seen that sort of thing. But nothing turned up in the databases about someone calling himself the ‘Holy Father’ specifically.”

“It’s not actually fanaticism,” Fox said, pulling out a chair and dropping into it. Cantrell frowned when he put his boots up on the edge of the table, but said nothing. “It’s a new, creative way to terrify people, and it’s been effective.”

“What if it’s a pun?” Blue asked, and everyone turned to him. “Holy Father. And Luis said he wasn’t the boss, that his father was – maybe the Holy Father is his actual father.”

“Maybe,” Candy said. “He seems like the kinda guy who would like a little word play to go along with his outlaw expansionism.”

Cantrell snorted. “You say that like it’s an insult.”

“What?”

“Outlaw expansionism. Like that isn’t exactly what the Dogs have been doing since their conception.” His voice dripped contempt.

Candy shot him a grin. “Yeah, but we’re a lot better at it.”

“We make it look good, even,” Fox added.

Cantrell shook his head, and cursed. “Right. So.” Glanced toward the maps on the board: one of Arizona, one of Texas, one of North America. “Where are they looking to expand?”

Candy’s gaze flitted to the most familiar, most often-traveled points on the map, his own personal ports of call. They weren’t all necessarily the hubs of the rest of the world, or ordinary citizens, but they blazed like beacons for him. Albany, Richmond, Knoxville, Atlanta, Gulfport, Jackson, New Orleans, Amarillo, Los Angeles.

“The last time around, they were breaking onto the American stage and just passing through. We got in the way, and so we duked it out. This time it’s personal: they don’t just want us out of the way, they want us wiped off the map. Literally.”

Cantrell looked between Candy and the board. “Your chapter, or all of them?”

Fox answered. “They’ll start here. If they succeed, they’ll move on to the other chapters.”

“Canthey succeed?”

Candy’s gaze traced the interstate pathways from Amarillo to Knoxville. If Knoxville ever fell, that would be the thing that fractured the whole organization. Another chapter would take up the “mother” mantle, and the Lean Dogs would regroup, keep limping along.

But it wouldn’t be the same. It would play out as a sign of major weakness; a crack in the armor. An unprecedented disaster that would shake the foundations of the outlaw world.

He said, “No, they can’t.” But his belly squirmed with an anxiety that was, like the idea of such a loss, unprecedented.

Forty-One

“Damn, ain’t you cute?” The self-appointed leader of the Cali contingent made a dramatic show of sliding his sunglasses down his nose and looking over their rainbow-slicked lenses at Michelle, smirking. “I knew he got himself an old lady, but I didn’t know she was–”

“Finish that sentence, Jackal,” Jenny said, breezing through the room with a legal pad, a pencil, and two cups of coffee. “I dare you.”

“Aw, Jen, you’re no fun,” he complained, sitting back theatrically, head tipped all the way back. He was perched on the edge of the round table where Michelle was seated with her own pad and pencil, and a cup of tea, having invited himself over with a great amount of put-upon Cali surfer charm that she didn’t find at all charming.

“Keep it up.” Jenny reached the mouth of the hallway and turned, her expression deadpan. “And you won’t be any fun for all the women you keep pretending want you.”

“Ooh, yikes,” he said with a chuckle, pressing a hand to his heart. He stood, though, and moved away from the table. “Please tell me there’s gonna be women after we get this shit squared away. A party? Just a little one?” He held up thumb and forefinger.

Jenny smiled sweetly. “That’s what she said.”

The other Dogs in the room cackled.

“Behave, Jack,” Jenny said, and whisked away.

He continued to chuckle, but Michelle thought she detected a nervous edge to the laughter, and he removed himself to the bar. The twins had never looked up, still watching a morning talk show at a faint volume over by the TV. She didn’t know why they were interested in business-casual makeovers for working moms, and wasn’t going to ask; was glad she and Axelle didn’t have an audience for this save Talis and Albie, the latter of whom was pretending to lounge two tables away, playing solitaire and stealing glances their way over his cards.

Across the table from them, Benny fidgeted in his chair. Darla had washed his clothes, but he only had the one outfit, and none of the boys had volunteered to let him borrow one of theirs. He’d shaved, and showered, thanks to the hospitality kits that Jenny always kept stocked in each dorm room, but he looked tired, worn-thin, fretful. Like a man afraid that any breath might be his last – which was the truth.

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