Through a Glass, Darkly (Assassins of Youth MC #1), page 13
“Yeah, well, your gunshot wound is the reason I’m here, Fortunati. I heard about the business that went down last week over in the book bindery. You can’t go to an urgent care doctor without someone knowing. Someone’s going to see the bloodstained bandages in the trash can.”
“Yeah.” I snorted, drying my legs. “Someone who’s always lurking around the back alleys of urgent care places, looking for bloody bandages.”
“That’s neither here nor there, although my abilities to wring information out of someone are legendary. Fortunati, I’m here to make a deal with you. I won’t tell anyone about the shootout last week—since then, no one has seen Mr. Breakiron anywhere around the premises, though he hasn’t checked out of his room—if you agree to help me with a sting operation.”
“Oh yeah? What are you gonna get Chiles for? Having more than his share of wives? Leave it alone, Carradine. These people are just doing the best they can with what they have. Last time the government tried to step in down here twenty years ago they took away everyone’s children and stuck them in foster homes. Now there was a bad PR situation for you guys. You came off looking like heartless monsters. Oh, right, you are heartless monsters.”
“Take your medication,” advised Carradine as I stepped into some clean skivvies and my jeans. I just wanted to move ahead with my life, not rehash crap with some goofy fed. “It’ll calm you down.”
“I don’t want to be calm. I work with these people, Carradine. Chiles has been generous enough to give me that mining job and I’m grateful. Why would I want to screw it up?”
Carradine folded his arms. “Yes. Why would he give you that mining job? Why were you sent here into the hinterlands of Utah, away from the Bullhead City bosom of your club?”
I actually was taking my medication. It was in pill form now—I was done with the IVs. “That’s not a big government secret, Carradine. I screwed up. I was making time with my Prez’s old lady, and I learned my lesson.”
“Yes.” Carradine practically wiggled his eyebrows, he was so in the know. “And you’re repeating the same mistake, making time with Chiles’ woman.”
I shot him a murderous glare. “Don’t you dare fucking repeat that lie to anyone, hear? I may be injured but I’m not fucking above silencing anyone who runs around telling lies about me. And Mahalia Warrior. She’s blameless in this whole thing.”
“Well, here’s the rub, partner. I won’t have to tell anyone about you and Ms. Warrior if you just help me out.”
Holding my T-shirt, I looked at myself in a mirror. The stitches were still swollen and painful even when air wafted over them. They said they’d had to cut out portions of my liver that had been mutilated by the bullet. “What sort of help did you have in mind?” I knew there was nothing I was going to help him with, even if I was capable. It had just been too ingrained in me ever since I was a juvenile delinquent kid living on the streets, letting smelly old men suck my wang for straight bank. You just did not cooperate with the law. Being in the Assassins pounded that into my skull even more violently.
“Help you out how?” I shot, and quickly put my T-shirt over my head, to get the painful lightning jabs over with fast. Why did I wear such damned tight T-shirts? I’d have to ask Dingo to bring me some of his K-Mart ones. He loved the ones with Star Wars logos. On second thought, I’d stick with my own even if they hurt.
“Well, you’re an insider. You could give me invaluable information about the location and types of his weapons stockpiles. Like, are we talking twelve AKs? Or hundreds, maybe thousands, of rifles and handguns? How much artillery does he have? Can you confirm it’s the book bindery where he’s storing it all? And, more important, what are his plans for it all?”
Sighing deeply, I turned to look at the guy. “Carradine, listen. I’m sure you’re a nice guy. You might even be the kind of guy the Assassins would do business with if you had something valuable we wanted. But you’ve got to understand. I can’t give you numbers or locations of anything. It’s a conflict of interest for me. For all I know, he might want weapons because he’s expecting the end of days.”
“One of those doomsday preppers, eh? It’s a conflict of interest for you because you’re the one selling him the armament.”
I breezed on past him, but I really had nowhere else to go. Mahalia forbade me from leaving the cottage. “I admit nothing, Carradine. If you’re planning on staging a raid, I want no part of it.”
Carradine dropped the palsy-walsy attitude now. “I’ve got more than enough already to get Chiles for stockpiling weapons, interstate trafficking, and welfare fraud.”
I opened the small fridge. “You can’t get him on welfare fraud, Carradine. Those women truly are single mothers.”
“If they are literally single mothers, Chiles should be paying them child support.”
I snorted. There was bacon in the fridge, but I didn’t feel like frying any, or cooking eggs. There was a homemade loaf of something. I took that out. It smelled like sourdough. “Chiles would just say he already sort of does pay them child support by giving them homes to live in and stipends to shop for groceries with. He’d get out of it somehow, Carradine.”
“That’s why I’m more interested in the weapons stockpiling angle. My bosses are too. What have you seen in there? Was it in the book bindery? Sources tell me that’s where the shootout occurred last week.”
I sliced into the bread. The pungent aroma drifted into my nostrils. I hadn’t had real sourdough in years. I was going to toast that baby to bring out the flavor. I lied, “All I’ve seen is a few completely legal fifty cal sniper rifles. And no, not in the bindery. I have no idea why you’re so fixated on that.”
“Where’d you see them?”
I turned to face him. “Who’s your source?”
Carradine frowned. “You know, Fortunati, I can just subpoena you. You might not believe in any higher power that forces you to tell the truth under oath. But I’ve got a feeling you’re a true blue son of Uncle Sam.”
I was. I really was. There was nothing in our biker culture that belied a belief in the founding fathers’ credos. If anything, we enforced those beliefs. All for one. One for all. But since I couldn’t honorably give Carradine a single additional shred of intel about Cornucopia, I said, “All I have to do is speed dial Chiles. Since saving his life last week, I’m on his honor roll. I tell him you’re in here, you’ll be lucky to get hustled out at the business end of a tank.”
Carradine held up his hands. “All right, all right. No need to get pissy. I’m going. You know how to get ahold of me.”
“Listen, Carradine. I’m not in Allred Chiles’ back pocket. I’ve got no love lost for the guy myself, and I suspect him of being a wife abuser. But I’m out here to start a new chapter of our club, a new legitimate chapter, and I don’t want anyone messing that up. I’ve got a good gig going. I see no reason to throw a monkey wrench into anything. So split already. People might say we’re in love.”
“All right,” Carradine agreed, reluctantly moving to the door. I was already busy inhaling my piece of sourdough toast. There was a stick of butter in the fridge, but I wanted to eat it plain. Carradine was just irritating me, like a fly buzzing around a room. He turned at the door to face me. “This thing is going to go down whether or not you like it, Fortunati. It’d be best if you and the people you love were coincidentally removed to safe houses before all the shooting started.”
I waved him off, not bothering to see where he went. Someone would see him eventually, know he was out of place, and call Chiles.
Strangely, no one had left me any voicemails the past week wondering where Breakiron was, or anything else of that nature. There were a couple of innocent voicemails, my old roommate Sledgehammer asking me where the electric drill was, Sax telling me Dust Bunny was on his way up, and then Dust Bunny asking some technical, admin-related questions about the mining office. But no one wondering where the fuck Breakiron was.
Now that I thought about it, he didn’t really have anyone who’d care. He had no old lady, having scared the last one off years ago. He’d been in the club at least as long as I had—in other words, the entire eight years I’d been there—but I’d never noticed any siblings or relatives come by to see him. The fact remained, though, I’d shot him through the throat, even though it was in self-defense. I was going to have to face the music eventually.
I wanted to leave it that way for now. Eventually I’d have to answer for my crime. I wasn’t in Papa Ewey’s good books to start with, and Breakiron had been his Veep, for better or worse. I could have tried to cover it up, to make an excuse, to say Breakiron drove off a cliff or went back East to family. Nobody would dig too deep. But right now, I couldn’t take off, ride back to Bullhead City to sit at the chapel table. Even once I got better, I couldn’t. Time was of the fucking essence right now, and saving Mahalia and her daughter was my number one priority. Breakiron could have his funeral later. He certainly hadn’t given two shits about mine.
But then I thought. Maybe I should have asked Carradine more questions about when this raid was set to take place. He was right—it’d be handy if I had Mahalia and Vonda out of there before any commando action took place.
I didn’t have time for a fucking sit-down with Papa Ewey and the rest of the club. They’d need to bring my action to the table, and seeing as how I was already exiled into extremist sect territory, well, who knew what the outcome would be. But I was literally stuck in that cottage, and I was praying that the second I got out, it would be to take Mahalia and Vonda with me.
I was doubtful it’d be safe to just bring them to my house. Even though a safe house would be a good idea, if it meant collaborating with the feds it would be a convenience I couldn’t afford. I’d heard too many stories of Cornucopians dragging women screaming back to the compound. It was ironic how they threw away men and boys, yet had to drag women back fighting them all the way.
Dust Bunny was set to visit me shortly thereafter. He came in, telling me his password was Monte Brough, given him by Pipkin. That was weird. I’d never heard of Monte Brough. For the hell of it, I texted Mahalia that question, and went to sit with Dust Bunny at the small kitchen table.
“Thanks for coming up here and helping with the mine.”
“No problem at all. It’s an honor. A challenging honor. I’ve just been Sax’s assistant for years, going to gem shows with him. Then lately I’ve been working in his new rock shop. But managing a mine? Wow. Beyond my wildest dreams. I read the assay. It said there are indications of platinum?”
“Right. It’s BLM land, and maintenance should’ve been paid to them a week ago.”
We talked mining for awhile, and then I cut to the chase. “Listen, I know you’re not an MC member.”
“No. Sax never asked me to Prospect for The Bare Bones. I don’t really mind, although I do feel out of place sometimes.”
“Well, rumor has it that I was chosen to head up a new Assassins chapter here in Avalanche. Least, that’s what Tim Breakiron was screaming about before I buried him.”
Dust Bunny’s white face went a shade paler. “What? What are you talking about?”
I told him about Breakiron’s rampage. I gave the slightest details about what I was doing in Chiles’ book bindery—plausible denial and all that—but I was up front about how I’d plugged Breakiron. It was obvious it was self-defense, as Dust Bunny could see my stitches through the flimsy fabric of my T-shirt.
“If you’re gonna prospect for us, you need to keep all of this real close to the vest for the time being. I asked Sax if it was all right to steal you away from him.”
Dust Bunny nodded, in awe. “I’m with you, man. Managing—hell, even co-managing—my own mine has been my dream since I was a frigging kid.”
“And another thing. Stop saying ‘frigging.’ You can say ‘fucking’ now that you’re an MC member. I’ll get you a Prospect cut.”
“Fucking,” echoed Dust Bunny. He had a geology degree like Sax, but I believe his was from an Ivy League university. Sax’s was from the University of Michigan.
“For now you can keep staying at my house, but eventually I’m going to sell my Bullhead City house and use the proceeds to purchase another Avalanche house. Those homes are going for a fucking song since Chiles took over.”
“A fucking song,” agreed Dust Bunny.
“This is where I really need you to step up to the plate. Soon—it’s got to be within the next couple of weeks before I get well enough to go back to work—I’m leaving here with a woman and her daughter.”
Dust Bunny grinned. He liked that. “Someone’s thirtieth wife?”
“Fortieth. And I guess I should tell you right now, she’s Allred Lee Chiles’ wife.”
“Fuck,” marveled Dust Bunny. He had all the qualities a good Prospect should have—admiration being top among them. “I heard you were a ladies’ man, but that is acramazing.”
“And don’t say ‘acramazing.’”
“Sorry. So you want me to protect her outside these walls, is that it?”
“Well, hopefully I can protect her. But we need to take one of her sister-wives, and God knows how many of her kids.”
“You said ‘God.’”
“I did? Don’t worry. I’m not converting to Chiles’ brand of Mormonism. Or anything for that matter.”
“You don’t believe in God?”
“I didn’t use to. You’re a man of science. You’d probably say this near death experience I just had was caused by a lack of brain cells firing, or firing in the wrong sequence.”
“Not at all. There’s been scientific evidence that there’s a consciousness that exists separate from our earthly reality. Quantum physics teaches that events don’t occur until conscious beings observe them.”
I snorted. “You’ll get along great with our other Prospect. Hang on.” My phone had just buzzed with a new text.
MAHALIA: Monte Brough went to Texas last week.
Well. That fucking answered my question. It begged the next question—who the hell would be left to run Cornucopia, to build new buildings and do the grunt work? They seemed to be transferring every man over the age of twenty to Texas. Everyone under that age was just dumped on the side of the road.
“Listen, Dust Bunny. There’s an urgent mine-related thing I need you to do, today if there’s enough daylight left. Can you authorize some deeper digging along the Streaked Wall Bench? Look for areas recently disturbed. It’s been staked off as long as I’ve been there as being played out.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Specifically, gold at two parts per million.”
“That’s mighty specific. You had some tip about this?”
I laughed, thinking about the source of my tip. “Yeah. Let’s just say it came to me when I was in a coma.”
“Cool,” said Dust Bunny, his face all lit up. “You know, the universe wasn’t created in one big bang. It’s a constant process, and it’s constantly being created, one observation at a time.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but I was glad he was taking me at face value. I had to trust him with my next nugget of information. “I want you to look for bodies there, Dust Bunny.”
His jaw dropped.
“Yeah. People have been overhearing things around here. Men have been vanishing. I know it’s not your usual thing to dig for.”
“To say the least.”
“And it’s asking a lot. Let’s just say that being in on the founding of a new chapter has a lot of messy requirements. If you don’t want the job, just say so. I’ll do it myself later, when I can.”
“No. You obviously need this information now. I’ll do it. Can I rest my case when I’ve found just one?”
“Well, more would be better. But yeah. One would confirm my suspicions. Keep it to yourself, of course. And can you go back downtown and check Breakiron out of his hotel room? Tell the hotel manager he was sent on a run or something—that sort of shit happens all the time—and put his personal effects in a closet at my house in case a relative pops up who wants his smelly old clothes. We’ll let the club take his scoot later on, when I’m ready to hash all this out with Papa Ewey.” Although not an MC member, Dust Bunny had his own scoot. He’d ridden all over the country with Sax for a few years.
“All right. And someone named Parley Pipkin came over to the mine. He wants me to get the men to work four hundred man hours and only get paid two hundred. Is this normal?”
“Yeah. He wants them to donate the work hours to his church. Happens all the time. It’s their way of tithing when they have no extra money to give. Just do it and shut up.” That procedure had irked me, as a member of the United Mine Workers of America. “Let’s not draw attention to ourselves.”
“Right. Don’t rock the boat.”
Dust Bunny seemed to understand then that I wanted to be alone. He stood. He was a shortish guy with an Afro of blond curls and a Van Dyke beard—the ultimate science dork, but Sax had vouched for his loyalty. “You know, I’m glad what you’re doing for these women. I’m more than glad to help. Women are better than men in so many ways. I was raised with women—all sisters. ‘You educate a man, you educate a man. You educate a woman, you educate a generation.”
I frowned. “Martin Luther King?”
“Brigham Young.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MAHALIA
It was my day to take the children out to Jeffersonian Butte, a craggy pinnacle of stunning limestone and sandstone, fiery fingers of the glory of nature that, revelation said, would lift us into heaven.
It was my opinion that Gideon was well enough to leave the cottage and get some air and I wanted to take him with me, but Allred didn’t allow that sort of liberty. No, he wanted to take Gideon with him to a couple business meetings. Maybe he thought he was gaining a new convert, not losing several.
I still wouldn’t believe we were being spied on, although Dingo told us how easy it would be to put a camera like a baby monitor in the cottage. Gideon hadn’t toyed with me again after that bathtub day, and I was somewhat despondent about it. Was he satisfied now that I’d jacked his dick? Did that tide him over until he could get on the outside and find another “lamb”? I’d found out that was what they called their women before they became old ladies—because sheep weren’t as easy to mold as lambs.
