Jake took a swig of his beer and set down the pole.
“Press play,” I said, tossing him the phone.
Abby went to stand next to him and while they watched, neither of them said a thing. While Abby looked horrified, Jake didn’t even react, while hearing it again made another piece of me feel like it died.
“What you need is a soldier. I’m not exactly the soldiering kind,” Jake said.
“If I get her back, and the motherfucker is somehow still alive when it’s all said and done, you can have him. Do whatever the fuck you want to him as long as the result is the same—him no longer breathing.”
Jake wrinkled his nose. “Nah man. Can’t take that from you. Revenge shit like this makes your blood boil and your dick hard all at the same time.”
Jake tossed me my phone and I scrolled through the pictures, stopping at the one I’d taken just that morning. I’d taken it for my own sick pleasure, not realizing how it could come in handy. I held up the phone, showing him the screen. “You can also have this,” I said.
“Jake,” Abby said, nudging him with her thigh. Jake’s eyes were glued to the screen, his pupils as big as saucers. “Jake,” she said again, pushing against him harder.
Jake looked up at her then back to me. “Okay. I’ll do it. Especially because my girl is looking at me like I won’t get any this century if I don’t. And since I’m trying my fucking damnedest to knock her up again…” Jake put a hand on Abby’s back and smiled up at her. There was no mistaking the connection between the two of them, and for a guy who took lives for pleasure, there was a reverence in the way he looked at her.
Like he worshipped her.
Jake took his eyes away from his wife, and when he looked back up at me, I swore I saw his eyes turn from blue to black. His voice was even slightly deeper. More even toned. “You got yourself a soldier,” he said, blowing smoke out through his nose into the night air like a fire breathing dragon.
“I’ll get your jacket,” Abby said, jogging back up to the house. Jake followed her with his eyes until she disappeared behind the sliding glass doors.
“Your girl?” Jake asked, handing me back my phone, the video of Doe paused close up on her face. “She anything like that?” He pointed to where Abby had just disappeared behind the sliding glass doors.
“Like what?”
“She better than you, but for some stupid reason doesn’t get that?”
“Sounds about right,” I said.
Jake tossed his cigarette into a pink bucket marked DADDY PUT YOUR NASTY CIGAMETTES IN HEERE SO YOUS DON’T KILL THE MAN TEES. “Just take my suggestion and when all this shit is over, and she comes out with a heart that still beats, and lungs that still pull air into them, make that shit legal. Marry her. Knock her up. Anything you can do to selfishly tie yourself to her for life.”
Abby came back out and handed Jake his leather jacket. “Keys are in the pocket,” she said. Jake stepped toward her and grabbed the back of her neck, pressing his forehead against hers. “Check on Gee. Tell her that her Daddy won’t be gone long.” He touched the pendant on some sort of necklace she was wearing and Abby covered his hand with her own. After a minute, they pulled apart and Jake shrugged on his jacket, leading the way back toward the front of the house.
“I’ve got my truck,” I said as we reached the driveway.
“Message said you best be there by eleven tonight?”
“Yeah.”
Jake shook his head. “I’m gonna grab my bike. Ride around for a bit. Clear my mind on the ride.”
“I’m gonna head to the clubhouse, see if Bear’s around. I can’t get him on his damn phone. Meet you at my place in an hour,” I said, turning toward my truck.
Jake lit a cigarette. He straddled his bike and turned the key, the engine roaring to life. With a quick tip his chin to me, he rode off down the shell driveway and onto the road, kicking up white dust into the black night air as he sped down the road.
I looked at my phone.
Nine p.m.
Two hours.
Two hours until I would see my girl again.
Dead or alive.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
King
I pulled up to the clubhouse and the skinny prospect manning the gate, a little shit they called Thor, stood from his ripped bar stool to slide open the gate. I drove in and parked next to Bear’s bike, leaving the keys in the ignition and the door wide open. I jumped from the passenger seat and headed to the courtyard.
“King!” Thor called from behind me. When I turned around, the skinny kid from the gate was running toward me. “Stop!” he shouted, coming to a breathless halt in front of me, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath. He held up his index finger.
“I ain’t got time for you to learn how to breathe again, kid. What the fuck do you want?” I asked him harshly.
“I forgot. I ain’t supposed to let you in here no more. You can’t be here,” Thor said.
“Who the fuck told you that?”
“Prez. He said you ain’t one of us so you can’t be coming round here no more, and I smoked a joint and I got fucked up and I totally fucked up. He’s gonna fucking kill me.”
“What the fuck does your VP think of that order?” I asked, crossing my arms across my chest. The kid’s eyes went wide as I stared him down.
“Don’t know, man. He’s been holed up in his room, rotating the BBBs in and out. He doesn’t come out except to grab another bottle and buy blow from Wolf. Won’t talk to no one neither. But seriously, you got to leave. Prez is going to kill me, and worse than that, I’ll never get my patch!”
“What are you afraid of more? Him killing you? Or not getting your patch?” “Patch, ’course,” Thor scoffed, scrunching his nose.
“Stupid little shit,” I muttered, heading toward Bear’s room.
“Seriously man, if you don’t turn around, I got to shoot you or they’ll shoot me.”
“So fucking shoot me!” I called back over my shoulder.
“Fuck man!” he groaned. “Just don’t be long. And don’t let no one see you! FUCK!”
The Lynyrd Skynyrd blasting from inside of Bear’s room changed to Johnny Cash, and in the millisecond of silence between songs, I heard a slight commotion inside, like furniture scraping against the floor. I pounded my fist on the door. “Bear, get your fucking ass out here.” Looking around I didn’t spot anyone but a few of the BBBs on the balcony across the courtyard who winked and crooked their fingers at me. I pounded again. When he still didn’t come to the door, I walked over to the end of the hall to the old elevator shaft, which no longer housed an elevator, and pulled at the crumbling knee wall in front of it until I found a piece of concrete that was big enough to accomplish what I needed. I walked back over to Bear’s room, pulled my arm back, and launched the block through Bear’s window.
A women inside screamed as I stepped through the window, ducking underneath the jagged shards of glass that still clung to the frame. Bear was lying on his bed. Naked except for his cut, a petite Asian girl was straddling him, the source of the scream.
“Get the fuck out,” I told her. She hopped off Bear and pulled down the scrap of material that had been bunched up above her tits until it barely covered her ass. She ran passed me, grabbing a pair of seven inch clear platform heels on her way out the door.
“You ain’t supposed to be here,” Bear said. The bruising on his face was still as bad as if he’d received the blows only hours before. His movements were stiff at best.
“Yeah, Thor told me that right after he let me in.”
“Tight fucking ship we’re running here.” Bear let out a frustrated breath and ran his hand through his messy mane of blond hair. “And I’m supposed to be captain of the SS Fucked up when shit’s sinking faster than the fucking Titanic.” An alarm sounded. The sound of muffled voices from the floor below rose up to Bear’s room.
“Alarm’s sounding,” Bear said flatly. “Calvary’s a coming.” He rolled onto his side and pulled a cigarette from his pack on the nightstand. He lit it and leaned back onto the bed, pulling off a condom and tossing it into the trash.
“Pops said I can’t play with you no more,” Bear laughed, taking a swig from a bottle of whiskey he picked up off the floor next to the bed.
“I figured that when he didn’t answer my calls. When we were in the weeds with Eli.” Bear flinched at the mention of his name. “And I don’t give a fuck what your old man thinks right now ’cause we got a fuck of a lot of trouble and no fucking time, so cover your fucking cock and get in the truck and I’ll fill you in on the way.”
“We always got trouble,” Bear mumbled. “What the fuck is new about that?” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“This is what’s new, asshole,” I said, tossing him the phone.
“You came all the way here, stormed your way in, practically ripped perfectly good Asian pussy off my cock, and more than likely cost Thor his patch, because you wanted to show me your new phone?” Bear asked, slurring his words. He held his cigarette over the floor and ashed it directly onto the carpet. An unused ashtray sat less than two feet away on the small two-person dinette table.