Page 47 of Devil’s Disciples

As we rolled into the restaurant’s parking lot, Reno shouted at Cash. “I had mine about half-throttle. Might want to get that ‘Glide checked out. Probably needs a set of rings.”

“Motherfucker doesn’t need rings, asshole,” Cash retorted.

Reno backed his bike into the stall beside Cash and peered over his left shoulder. “Sure acts like something’s wrong with it.”

“Fuck you,” Cash seethed. “There isn’t--”

Ghost backed in beside Reno, positioning his rear tire to be even with the three that were already parked. “Had mine about half-throttle, too. If I’d have pegged it, I’d have climbed up your back fender.”

“Same here,” Goose said dryly. “Had to let off mine. Damned near hit Reno when we took off. I twisted that bitch all the way back, and then I decided you must have just been dicking around. You didn’t have yours pegged, did ya?”

Cash looked at Tito and cocked an eyebrow. “Well?”

Tito situated his bike beside Goose’s and shut it off. “I’m with Reno. I thought I was going to hit Ghost. Maybe there’s something wrong with yours. Plugged exhaust or a bent valve. Something.”

Cash glanced at me, pulled off his helmet, and let out a long breath. “What do you have to say?”

I draped the chin strap of my helmet over the handlebars. “Me?”

“No, motherfucker. I’m talking to the palm tree behind you.”

I turned toward the entrance and brushed the wrinkles from my jeans.

“God damn it, Bake,” Cash whined. “There ain’t nothing wrong with Mary, is there?”

A stripper in Austin, Texas once sucked Cash’s cock so aggressively that one of his nuts swelled to the size of a baseball the next morning. We rode to Phoenix, Arizona, but he couldn’t go another mile. The swollen testicle required thirty-two thousand dollars’ worth of surgery and ten days of antibiotics. Even though he limped for a month afterward, he swore it was the best blowjob he’d ever received.

The human vacuum cleaner’s stage name was Mother Mary. In her memory, Cash graced every post-blowjob Harley he owned with her name.

I turned around and situated my bracelets. “I had another half inch of throttle,” I lied. “You were just playing, weren’t you?”

“Son of a fucking bitch.” He looked at his bike, and then at me. “Seriously?”

“Half, maybe three quarters of an inch, yeah. Why?”

“I had her pegged, Bake. All the way back.”

“Have Reno tear it down and rebuild it,” I said dryly. “I’d say the cam’s flat. Might be rings. Who knows?”

“God damn it. That motor’s not that old.”

“Age has nothing to do with it,” I said. “Just like the woman you named her after, Mary’s had a rough life.”

“Mary was hot as fuck. You don’t even remember what she looked like.”

I choked on a laugh. “She looked like haggard shit. One tit was bigger than the other, she had a two-inch scar on her belly, a mole on the left side of her neck, and her son’s name was Jesus. How’s that?”

He walked past me and pulled open the door. “I don’t remember the mole.”

The waitress pushed two tables together, seated us, and then tried to hand out menus. When she held an extended arm over Ghost’s lap with a menu in tow, he shook his head.

“Glass of water to drink,” he said with a nod. “Prime rib medium rare. Horseradish sauce and au jus. Baked potato. Butter. Sour cream. Whatever the vegetable of the night is will be fine. Please, and thank you.”

She tried to hand a menu to Reno.

Reno raised his hand in protest and shook his head. “Same.”

She looked at Goose.