Page 89 of Givin' Me Fitz!
Baby Lawyer turned to Shores. “I’m not an attorney, I’m a paralegal for Aileen Combs, Esquire. She’ll meet her clients at the courthouse and wanted me to check on them.” He pointed to the camera in the ceiling. “Turn that off. This is a privileged communication between these clients and their counsel’s representative. If the DA ends up with tapes of this meeting, I’ll have your badge and hang it over my toilet.”
Shores held up his hands as he guffawed before closing the door. I turned to the guy. “Who the fuck are you? Is this some joke?”
The young man grinned. “I’m Harden Sparks. Jesse Sparks is my father, and I’m here to check on you guys. Are you okay?”
I looked at the kid to see he was still wet behind the ears, and I started to laugh. Hobie, Spider, Ders, and Arlo joined me. It made me grin. My family was sitting there with me, and we were supporting each other. And now, the man I loved had sent someone to check on me.
All I needed now was Fitz—and maybe a laxative? Those rubber gloves needed to make an appearance somewhere that they couldn’t be found. A jail cell toilet didn’t seem like a bad idea.
“Harden, can you get me a laxative? I’ve been constipated for a couple of days. My stomach is a mess. Please?”
The kid looked baffled for a moment before he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Monty, can you get a laxative for Sawyer Abbott? He’s sick. Uh-huh? Oh, okay. Thanks.”
He hung up and pressed the button by the door. When Shores opened the door, Harden stood tall—to all his five feet, four inches. “My client is sick and needs medical attention. A colleague of mine is bringing him medicine unless you want to take him to University Medical Center. If you deny him medical care—”
“Jesus fucking… What’s wrong with him?” It made me happy inside to see Shores was pissed off.
“I’m constipated and it’s making me sick.” Hell, needing to get rid of those gloves made me give twoshitsless whether I was embarrassed by my admission.
Shores came back with a bag containing a box of laxatives that Monty must have picked up from the bodega up the street. I opened it and swallowed six of the little chocolate squares in front of the cop before sitting on the bench and waiting. I hoped to fuck my ass didn’t turn inside out, but some things were more important than comfort.
“You motherfucker! What the hell did you eat?”
The executive committee of the Pahrump Steel Cowboys were huddled at the far end of the cell with their backs to me as I did the deed in a very big, loud way. It wasn’t a goddamn hotel. It was a cell with a toilet, and I needed it.
“If I could do this anywhere else, I promise you I would.” I took care of things and flushed the toilet as I stood to see the gloves go down the stack. There… another problem solved.
Jim Middleton hadn’t returned to the cell, which was starting to bother me. “I think I’m done, guys. Sorry, but…”
Arlo chuckled. “I’m just glad you didn’t eat at my place. I’m not to blame for whatever is happening in your gut. After we get outta here, I’d rather not see you for a few days, Bones. It’ll take a while for that sound to get out of my head. Anyway, do we have any idea when we’re getting out?”
“Hey, if we’re in here we can’t be blamed for any of that shit that happened because we didn’t do anything at the casino. Do you think that we can still collect on our bet?” Hobie asked. I’d had to give up the ticket along with my wallet when we were brought in.
I hadn’t even thought about how long we’d have to cash in the ticket. “That’s a good question. I’ll have to call someone to see what happened with the betting window. We got our bet in before it closed, so the casino should honor it.”
I sure hoped so. We had a lot riding on that money.
A lady lawyer named Aileen Combs showed up in a really fucking bad mood to represent us during the arraignment, and bail was finally set for each of us. Even though many of us didn’t have records and should have been released on our own recognizance, the judge issued a ten grand price tag per man, including Jim, to be released.
We were charged with inciting a riot and breach of the peace because of the fight at the casino, even though we didn’t start it. The judge was aware that two motorcycle clubs were involved, which was why he set the bail amount so high. I was relieved because I knew it could have been so much worse for us, simply because we were members of the Steel Cowboys.
Deputy Marin came back and stood at the cell door. “You’ve all been bonded out. Back up to the cell door and put your hands through, one at a time.”
I laughed. My gut was still churning from my overdose of laxatives, but what the fuck did the deputy think we were going to do? We were gettingoutof jail. We weren’t going to start any trouble.
Marin escorted us out of the holding cell and into the hallway leading out to the intake area where I expected to see Sparky or Fitz —but I didn’t expect to see my mother.
“Where’veyoubeen?” I asked her, my voice was harsher than I wanted it to be.
“Your father sent me to visit my cousin Ruthie in Carson City. What’s going on?”
“WhereisDad?”
Fitz stepped forward. “Take off those cuffs. We posted bail for all of them.”
The deputy went about removing the zip cuffs from all of us, and when he finished, we followed my mother and Fitz out of the detention center like we were following the pied piper.
Tiny and Tim had trucks there to take us back to the clubhouse, but I followed Fitz to his and opened the door to the back seat for my mother. “Get in, Mom.”
