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“They have to be. Only certified evil people are allowed to take us anywhere.”
I smile and shake my head as I usher and count the kids out to the back where the gray bus is waiting.
Clive, the driver, is already in the cab with his shades on his head. He strokes his sideburns, and he has the engine running. Bonnie, the ‘guide,’ her badge says, stands by the bus with a clipboard, a pen, and no trace of a smile.
Whatever I have to do, I am going to give these kids a Christmas day of treats and gifts and songs and games, and make the very best Christmas of their little lives.
Chapter Five
Drago
“Christmas. Fuck. Happens every year.” My voice rasps like a saw, but her eyes widen and shine as I say, “And who fucking cares?”
I should probably have kept my mouth shut. Never opened up to the bouncy Christmas angel. Normally I would stay quiet. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.
When I rode into this one-turkey nowhere town, it was to make a quick score. Couple of bricks of coke and some weapons. Meet with a biker from the local Boneyard Warriors chapter, get the deal done, and get gone.
Sparkle and tinsel and lights are everywhere, and snow is on the ground. I was standing out like a shark, leaning on my Harley by a lamppost. A Sicilian, fresh out of working with the mobs in Las Vegas, I’m getting accustomed to being a loner, drifting. I’m not used to the weather up here, though.
But one bright look from the eyes of a curvy Christmas angel in a black dress and I open up like a goddamn beer tap. Whatever spilled into my head flowed straight out of my mouth. And that’s not good. That’s dangerous, is what it is. If I keep on like this, I could wind up saying something that will get me in really deep shit.
Hanging out on here on the street corner, I’m feeling the cold in my bones. And I feel a chill from some neat and prim people in the town of Greenmeadow, too. I’m not feeling social or festive, but that’s where it all started.
The only real people I’ve come across here are a dirt-poor farmer and his family outside the town.
But, when I ran out of gas and old farmer Brown saw I needed help, he wouldn’t let me go without a full meal, as well as a tank of gas, and he wouldn’t take a cent in payment.
“Happy to help,” he told me as he and his wife and kids waved me on my way. “It’s what Christmas is all about.”
They’re struggling. He said, ‘Like most farmers, I guess,’ but it seemed to me like the Brown farm was hit harder than most.
I’m at the arranged spot, and my burner phone rings, dead on time. The biker from the Greenmeadow Boneyard Warriors MC chapter drawls, “We don’t know you. We don’t know who you are.”
I look up and down the street. My eyes narrow and my fist clenches. “You know the deal. What’s your beef?”
“You talk the talk. But who the fuck are you? My pres and my sergeant at arms want to know what patch you wear, bro.”
“Tell ’em they can go fuck themselves anytime they want. There’s no patch on my jacket and I don’t wear anyone’s cut. I’m here for the deal and that’s all. I’m not a fed and I’m not your bro.” And I tell him, “You’re fucking late. Where I’m from, that’s disrespectful.”
“So, what,” his chuckle sounds like rusty tools rattling in an old tin box, “you’re a civilian on a scooter?”
I hadn’t told them I was coming on a bike. They must have been hiding somewhere, peeking at me like little sissies. I like to ride, and I thought coming on a Harley would be friendly. Not the kind of a thing that would trip me up, usually. Won’t be happening again, either.
“You want to make the deal or you want to fuck around and play stupid games?”
“Maybe we need some bona fides.”
“Maybe if I burn your fucking clubhouse down, I can find what I need in the fire.”
As I hang up in his face, that’s when the chattering cloud of scruffy little kids rolls out of the snowflakes and down the street toward me.
One little rascal snatches a candy cane right out of a little girl’s hands. Her face stretches wide and red, and glows as she lets out a long, rising, high-pitched siren cry. The little boy scowls, and he snaps back at her.
“I want something for Christmas, too. Why should it always be someone else that gets every nice thing?”
Me, I’m holding back a laugh. I think I’ll have to turn away. He reminds me too much of me at his age, a crackling ball of anger and rage. Mean as a bear and dumb as a rock.
Then I see the figure of the five and a half feet of curves to make Christmas ribbon candy jealous. She was herding the kids, shepherding them like a blonde, bouncy, fluffy sheepdog. Her eyes make my chest swell and set a fire in my pants. Her tits makes my mouth water.
