Page 11 of Menace

He stood with Dive, keeping his eyes on the men not wearing his club’s patch. Searching the crowd for Killer but he was nowhere to be seen.

It didn’t give him a good feeling. The fucker needed watching.

Maniac had scarcely put his phone away when Jonno walked up. The brother didn’t look happy.

“Prez, Saint is requestin’ a meet. Right now if possible.”

“Fuckin’ hell.” Maniac grumbled. “Fine, give me a minute and make sure to sweep for bugs. After meetin’ with those fucks anythin’ is possible.”

“You got it, Prez.” Jonno didn’t hang around but went right back into his clubhouse.

Maniac gestured them closer.

“I have no idea what the Demon Reapers want. Once we’re in there we handle the situation the same way we did the Robbers. We listen to what they have to say and talk about it later.” Not waiting for them to answer he turned and strode back into the clubhouse.

Once again Lucky stood with his back against the wall, watching.

The men sitting across from Maniac were about his age, young for a club president and a VP.

Wilder “Saint” Thompson had been a kid of twenty two when he was voted in as president after his father was gunned down outside a bar. The shooter was never found. There had been rumours it had been an inside job. The Demon Reapers MC didn’t have the best of reps back then.

About ten years ago there had been rumours that Saint and his men had beaten up his old lady.

Not only that, apparently he had let his men rape her before he had her and their son dumped in the desert. No one Lucky spoke to at the time could tell him if it was true or not.

What he did know was that the bastard’s old lady and their baby boy had disappeared from the clubhouse never to be seen or heard from again.

They didn’t know whether there was any truth to the rumours or if it had been manufactured by his enemies.

Saint had a lot of enemies and so did his club.

Some of those enemies were right under his nose. Lucky wondered if the man knew there were brothers in his club working to get rid of him.

Byte had done a deep dive on the chapter in Tucson when they knew they would be at the meet. It had proved to be very interesting.

The chapter has been going through major upheavals since their VP, Ike “Striker” Blake, deserted, taking some of the members and a lot of money with him. They had gone underground and haven’t been found, not yet, but the Reapers were looking. Instead of voting in a new VP their National President had appointed Thomas “Case” Salazar to the position. He was transferred in from their Knoxville, Tennessee chapter. A Southern boy.

Byte hadn’t been able to find anything that would indicate Case was a bad guy. He was married to his high school sweetheart and had three kids with her. He was a family man, no rumours of club sluts or side pieces to be found.

His police record was clean which was amazing seeing as the club was deeply involved in gun running, prostitution and protection. He had the reputation of being a good brother, one who took care of his old lady and his club. The men in Knoxville had nothing but good things to say and had been sad to lose him but happy about his promotion.

Saint’s reputation, however, was spotty. He had a record as a juvenile, but it was mostly petty theft and malicious damage to property charges. Nothing big and nothing since either. The hit to his rep came from the disappearance of his old lady and son, and the whispers of their abuse and murder at his hands. Byte noted that he hadn’t claimed another woman or had relationships since then.

It would be interesting to see what the motherfucker wanted from them.

“Thank you for agreein’ to meet with us, Prez.” Saint gave their prez the respect he was due.

Maniac gave a small chin lift in acknowledgement.

“I know you’re wonderin’ why the hell we wanted this meet. I’m not goin’ to fuck around. I’m just goin’ to come out and say it. The Psycho Raiders MC has withdrawn safe passage through their territory. As you know they don’t claim dominance in any of the states but they have one or more clubs in most states. It makes it almost impossible for my club to fulfil our contracts. It started with the PRMC in Phoenix denyin’ us passage through their territory about ten years ago. We honoured their decision and found other routes. Unfortunately we now find ourselves unable to use several routes up the West Coast. Where possible we’ve been handin’ cargo over to support clubs but we need to cover parts of the route ourselves. Your club, along with the Devil’s Spawn are the dominants on the West Coast, if you grant us safe passage the PRMChasto let us ride through. You give us this and we’ll not only owe you a marker, we’ll give you half the proceeds of our next cargo.”

Saint finished his little speech but didn’t relax and neither did his VP. They waited for Maniac’s reaction.

“Why did the PRMC deny you safe passage?” He asked quietly.

Saint shrugged and shook his head, his eyes stayed level with Maniac’s. He didn’t do the usual eyes sliding away and back that liars were known for.

“I don’t know, Prez. Several calls went unanswered and eventually we were told it was a done deal. Voted on by the club. Our National President reached out to theirs but he was told it was a club issue and nothin’ could be done about it.”

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