Page 14 of Beast
“Shit,” Carmen said.
“Skank whore.” I headed outside with Gigi and Carmen following, wondering what was happening.
5
Beast
Weparkedthebikesa block away and took a back alley to Hot Rod Willie’s, guns in waistbands, hidden by kuttes. Felons and firearms didn’t mix as far as the locals were concerned. When we got to the back entrance, the door was standing open. Two Hell’s Messengers were loading motorcycle parts into a pickup.
“Assholes,” I said and moved forward, gun raised. “Put the parts down and slowly drop your pieces to the ground.”
It seemed somewhere over the past ten years, people stopped listening. Maybe there was something in the air, clogging ears. The Messengers did half of what they were told. They put the parts on the ground, but both went for their guns as they were coming up. Both also found a bullet to the skull and dropped next to the parts they were stealing.
The pickup started, and the tires squealed. I’d not seen the guy in the driver’s seat. He started away, and I started after him, diving into the pickup before the guy exited onto the main road. I heard Big Kentucky hollering for me to hang on. Did he think I would pirouette down Main Street in the back of a truck?
The guy took the next turn, trying to throw me from the truck. I hung on as if hanging onto my old lady’s hips during a fuckfest. I let out a cheerful howl when the truck straightened on the next road. Damn, being a biker was a hoot. I missed canyon carving!
The driver glanced back, his eyes the size of ping pong balls, and drew a Glock. He fired twice through the window, but the angle sucked so bad that he missed by a mile. Unfortunately for him, I had the perfect angle and put a bullet to the back of his head.
The truck careened off parked cars and headed up a sidewalk, barreling over chairs and tables outside Lady Birds Café. The windows I smashed with the heads of Messengers were covered by plastic. Right before the truck hit a telephone pole, I jumped from the back and landed feet first on the street, rolling ten feet like a stuntman. Life was fucking good.
Big Kentucky was the first to arrive, patting his seat for me to hop on. The Prospects who’d been driving the van were next. They loaded the parts from the back of the pickup, and the bunch of us returned to Hot Rod Willie’s. TexMex and a Prospect already had the two dead Messengers rolled up in plastic. The Prospects carried the parts back into the store, and then we loaded the bodies into the van.
“Take them over off Highway 54,“ I said. “Make the graves deep enough that animals aren’t dragging them away for a family dinner.”
TexMex climbed onto his bike. “I’ll let Willie know he got a three-for-two deal.”
“Hold up.” I opened the van doors and pulled back the plastic covering the two dead men. “Drop these assholes outside the Hell’s Messengers’ club. Ingles needs to know he’s losing whatever fucking game he’s playing.”
“You got it, Prez,” TexMex said. He followed the van away from Willie’s.
Big Kentucky climbed on his bike. “That’s a strong fucking message, Beast.”
I nodded, knowing that it was. “Someone’s fucking with the club. We’ll go down the line and stop the bullshit.”
“You know Ingles isn’t smart enough to have someone install hidden camera’s in the whorehouse,” Big Kentucky said. Ingles was the Hell’s Messengers’ club president. We went way back but parted ways a few years before we each became our club’s president. He was a good guy for a while, but when he lost his wife and kid during a raid by the feds on his club, he turned ten kinds of hell. He put the locals and Pine Bluff on notice. Yeah, the feds killed his wife and kid, but the locals were the easiest to torment.
I showed up at the funeral, which Ingles didn’t mind, but when I turned down his request to turn Pine Bluff into a killing field, he turned on me and the Brothers of Chaos. He grabbed onto the idea of being a one-percenter and ran with it. The feds refused to help out the locals. They were afraid too many of them would die. We were the only thing keeping Ingles from destroying Pine Bluff.
“You’re right. Technology isn’t his vibe. Which means someone with at least half a brain is trying to scrub the club.” I pulled on my gloves and helmet, securing the Glock in my waistband. “Maybe someone is trying to get dirt on one of our clients.”
We’d had almost every man in Pine Bluff come to the whorehouse at one time or another. People needed sex the way people needed to breathe. We kept things private. It kept the judges, the D.A., and most locals on our side.
“Dick,” Big Kentucky said. He smiled ear-to-ear, and I was afraid he was jumping teams.
“What?”
“Dick should be our new income stream.”
“What the fuck happened to you while I was at Varner, BK?”
Big Kentucky laughed. “Hear me out.” He stared ahead, contemplating his next words. “We have all these motherfuckers coming in for pussy. Why can’t we have those motherfuckers’ wives coming in for dick? We set up a different location. Make it just as discreet, and the cash starts rolling in.”
“I guess you wanna run that shit?” I asked. “Or you wanna be the dick they’re coming in for?”
Big Kentucky laughed hardily. “Raisin ain’t gonna let that happen. Give it some thought.”
Sirens blared in the distance, and we rode away from Hot Rod Willie’s, having paid our debt to Willie and discovered a new income stream. I wasn’t sure how I’d bring it up at church. “Who’s interested in dick?” No. I glanced over at Big Kentucky as he rode next to me. It was a brilliant idea. Implementing would be hard.
