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“It’s prime for it though,” Slade said. “That means you have to put in some actual work,Chief.”
“Listen, I was working intel!” Chief Dick Rundle suddenly yelled. “You boys don’t like it? Fuck yourselves! I’ll tear this entire place apart. You can’t stop me. What the fuck are you going to do about it? Nothing!”
The chief threw his shoulder into Cyrus and walked away. Now, by doing so, the chief had to jump up on his toes to even attempt to match the height of Cyrus’s shoulder. And later on,the chief would need to ice up his shoulder because a large bruise would have formed. Hitting Cyrus’s shoulder was like running right into a brick wall.Ouch.
The police finally cleared out. Slade knew it was time to pray.
This prayer would be private and put the entire club in danger.
Cyrus paced like a lion. So pent up, unable to sleep, his steel-cut face looking dirty but not tired. That was one thing about Cyrus, he could stay awake for days and never look tired. He just looked meaner…and meaner…
“Prez,” Linc said. “Let me get Maggie and a couple otherdeecee’sto have their way with you, huh? Take a load off. Literally.”
“You know what we just figured out, right?” Cyrus asked.
Slade swallowed hard. He leaned against an old work bench. At one point in time this garage had been used for fixing cars and motorcycles and anything else with an engine. Back in the day,JCdidn’t just want to run with a bunch of outlaws. Johnny Cutter might have been a little bit crazy to those who didn’t know him, but he believed in a sense of brotherhood and extended that into a sense of community.
Mr. Jenkins who lived in the baby-blue ranch two blocks away? The guy who served in fucking WW2? Storming beaches. Defending freedoms. Huh? You think for a second when that man pulls on his lawnmower and it doesn’t start I’m not going to be the one to fix that up for him? Huh?
The vision evolved, as required by time. Even this prayer right now would have never happened.JCwould have fixed ten lawnmowers for free but if someone even thought about actinglike a rat in his club, he would have killed everyone and started over.
“Fuck me,” Linc said. “It could have been a little bit easier. One of the prospects. An enforcer. Christ. Why?”
“Power, greed, money,” Slade said. “You name it. It’s not like it used to be.”
“We go with what we know,” Cyrus said. “We faked a van full of coke and what happened? The van didn’t get randomly pulled over, did it? It was swarmed. They knew.”
“They found nothing in the van but a few pies,” Linc said.
“Donating baked goods to a senior citizens home,” Slade said. “But still… we have a big problem. Bigger than just a rat. We have a rat at our table.”
Cyrus turned and hammered his fists down to an old workbench so hard that rusted tools jumped into the air, along with years’ worth of dust and grime.
“FUCK!” Cyrus roared.
“We have to play it cool still,” Slade said. “Unless you want to go extreme,Prez.”
“There’s a lot of heat in town for that,” Cyrus said. “I can’t kill everyone and then put together another table. Not with these fucking murders. Speaking of which…”
Cyrus now eyed Slade as an easy target. Slade was a big man. A strong man. He fit the outlaw code just by look and size alone. A gruff face. Scruff on his face. Dangerous eyes. But when Cyrus looked at Slade…
“I’ll have Priest cut the heads off the prospects if you’d like,” Slade said. “But this one is smart. Nelle is very smart. She snuck right out.”
“And that’s it? You let her go?”
“No,” Slade said. “We’ve been a little busy here,Prez.”
“Before something really stupid happens here,” Linc cut in, “can we take inventory? I think it’s safe to say we trust Slade.Let him do this thing. With this warning.” Linc pointed at Slade. “Find the woman and figure it out. She can’t listen to rules, then make her. Put your ink on her ass or right on one of her cunt lips and make her know what’s what.”
Slade flexed his jaw and nodded. He looked at Cyrus for approval.
Cyrus gave the nod. “Fair enough. As far as our table goes, we know we have a rat. A legit rat. We know the names. It’s hard to decide what’s what. We can paint them all as rats by how they act. We can kill them all. We can chain them all up and look for a confession. Right now though we need to preserve who we are. And what we’re doing. The three of us have to keep the conversations on point yet at minimal.”
“No offense, Cyrus, but that’s a slippery slope,” Slade said. “You’re talking about leaving table guys out of talks and possibly votes. Your cocaine deal rattled a lot of the guys. Even though it was fake. They didn’t know it was fake.”
“When we find this rat, Slade, I’m going to offer him up to every person at that table,” Cyrus growled. “I’m going to explain everything that was done and why. And all their anger can go to the rat. And when it’s all said and done, if someone wants to call a vote to change leadership, go for it. Because you and I—and all the others—know that ifJCwere in my shoes, you’d all be dead by now.”
The words could not be spoken any clearer than that. There was nothing left to say. Cyrus exited the old building first. Slade and Linc stared at one another.
