All the Sky (2 page)

The club had opened a wine bar in Signal Bend. After months of delays, caused by everything from permit trouble to club trouble to the fact that Havoc had no idea what he was doing and had had to learn as he went, with Show’s old lady’s help, Valhalla Vin had been up and running for about a year and a half or so.

As far as Havoc was concerned, a wine bar was a fucking ridiculous thing for an MC to be running, but it had kind of been his idea. Accidentally. No Place, the town bar, was where he, the Horde, and a lot of guys in and around town went to cause some trouble. A place where a man could swing a fist without getting delicate sensibilities all stirred up. For years, when no one was ever around except townsfolk, everybody knew to expect a fight or two to break out most nights. Full-on brawls, even. Tuck Olsen, the owner and reason everybody called the place Tuck’s rather than its official name, didn’t serve much more than beer and hard liquor, and he didn’t offer much more in the way of food than burgers and pizza. People came for the friendship and the fighting—which were all bound up together. And on Saturdays, there was live music and everybody danced, too—and fought all the harder.

But then things had turned around. Almost four years ago, after all the shit with Ellis, when Signal Bend got famous and had a movie made about it—one that had won some Oscars a few months back. Now, people came to visit Signal Bend. They shopped in the shops, and they stayed at the B&B, and they went looking for a drink of an evening. Some were even moving the fuck in. The town wasn’t what anyone would call prosperous, and it was too far off the interstate ever to be, most likely, but it had climbed some way up out of the pit it had fallen into long years ago.

The outsiders weren’t so keen on Tuck’s lively atmosphere. At first, Tuck and the Horde tried to settle things down, limit the fighting and take what there was outside. But that sucked. It changed everything. Everything everywhere was changing, and it sucked.

All the Horde felt it, but Havoc knew he’d been the most vocal about it. They’d decided to open a place where the Volvo set could have a drink and stay away from Tuck’s. C.J. had been given the job of getting it started. But C.J. had turned out to be a traitorous piece of runny shit, and the job had fallen to Havoc. A wine bar. Havoc didn’t know a cabernet from a cabaret—or he hadn’t, anyway, when he’d started. He did now. It sucked.

But Valhalla had been a popular place almost from the first day. It had started to turn a profit after a few months—even more profit than they had known, it turned out.

Dom’s voice shook, but he answered the question Isaac had asked Havoc, and he answered like he knew that he knew his stuff. “From what I could put together, he started small, just pushing some numbers around here and there, padding tabs, probably skimming straight out of the register, shit like that. He started right off, looks like, before we even had a good sense of how the place would run. I’d say he was bumping his income the first several months by a grand or so each month, no more.

Now Havoc leaned forward. “Until about six months ago. Don’t know if he’s got some kind of trouble or if he just got greedy and cocky, but he got motivated. Started fucking with the accounts payable, adjusting invoices and shoving the difference in his pocket. The skim now is 5K plus a month. Last month, with the Spring Fest and all, the books are more than 7K off.”

In early May, spurred by Lilli, Isaac’s old lady, and Shannon, Show’s, the town had reinstated an old tradition that had died about twenty years earlier—the Signal Bend Spring Fest, an old-school country fair that had started out generations ago as a celebration of the sowing season. This “Second Inaugural” Spring Fest, after the Oscars and everything, had been huge. People had come from everywhere.

“And we know it’s Bellen?” As was usually the case, Isaac calmed as the picture filled in. The clearer the picture of a problem, the more his attention turned to solving it.

“Yeah. Not like there’s a lot of people with access. Us, and him.”

Show turned his chair and faced Dom. “His check show anything?”

“No, Show,” Dom actually looked a little pissed at the question. “He came up clean when we hired him. Since then, he’s started some new accounts, though. I found them when Hav and I started thinking something was off. One in his name, one in each of his sons’ names. So far, he’s just saving it, so I’d say it’s not gambling or anything like that. I haven’t done a full check yet into what he needs the money for. Gonna do that next. I’ve just been chasing the money. ”

Havoc laughed. “Maybe he’s saving up a college fund or some shit.”

Apparently, Isaac wasn’t ready to see any humor in the situation, because his brows drew sharply together. With all of his hospital bills, which Havoc guessed were huge, Isaac and Lilli were just climbing out of some big money trouble. He didn’t know the details, and he didn’t care to know, but he did know that he shouldn’t have tried to make light of this. He also knew that Larry was fucked.

But Isaac was calm when he spoke. “You in the business of sending other people’s kids to college, Hav? Cause I’ve got two kids of my own to take care of, and that asshole is stealing from them. We’ll get the why straight out of him. Through one hole or another. I want him in here, and now.”

That was a bad idea, and Havoc shook his head. “No can do, Isaac. Larry’s at Valhalla. It’s Thursday night, so there’s that folkie chick singer, and the Volvo set loves her. Place gets pretty crowded. We don’t want to be yanking him out of there—and we’ll have to yank. Valhalla’s not Tuck’s—we gotta go in cool.”

Isaac raised one eyebrow at that, and Havoc knew exactly what he was thinking. Havoc wasn’t exactly known for a ‘think first, punch later’ approach to problem-solving. Hell, he was proud of it—just as he admired Isaac’s short temper. A man who thought too much never got around to doing anything, far as he was concerned.

That said, Valhalla was his responsibility, and as much as it
fucking sucked
to run a wine bar, he took pride in its success. He’d had to learn all that wine shit, so might as well make it count. He didn’t want the place to clear out and stay clear because they’d freaked out the Volvo drivers by dragging Larry screaming through the place. As much as he intended to bloody him and but good for sticking his fingers where he shouldn’t, Havoc wanted to do it smart.

Isaac finally nodded. “Okay. Tonight, then. After close. All four of us, and Len.”

“That’s gonna scare him, Isaac.” Show’s voice was low.

“I know. I want him scared. We wait, cover the exits, and get him alone.” Isaac looked again at Havoc. “Get the Room ready. You’ll need your kit.”

Havoc smiled. It had been a damn long time since he’d messed a fucker up. Though he’d always been a club go-to for putting down beatings when they were called for, he’d only been an official enforcer since the Scorpions shit—when he’d taken on the temporary job of SAA, too, while Isaac was out and Show had taken the lead and Len had stepped up to VP. Havoc had taken on the role of enforcer from Vic—and, in fact, Vic had been his first subject in that capacity, when he’d turned traitor. Since then, things had been quiet, and the need for enforcement had been limited.

He wouldn’t say he enjoyed it, exactly. Sometimes not at all. But there were times when it was very satisfying. When the fucker really deserved it. Like Vic.

And Larry Bellen.

~oOo~

Valhalla closed at one in the morning. About fifteen minutes before that, Havoc left his brothers in the lot next door and went in to keep track of Larry. Len and Dom split up at the same time, headed for the front and rear exits.

As much as it grated on Havoc that the Horde were involved in a business like this, he had to admit that they’d done it up right. Drawing on the Nordic ancestry most of the town natives—including Havoc, on his mother’s side—shared, they’d done it up like a Viking great hall, with heavy beams in the peaked ceiling, heavy oaken planks for tables, with stools to match, and wide, unfinished, rough-hewn floorboards. The bar was the same heavy oak, as were the shelves around the rough walls that held the bottles of wine for sale. For a pussy wine bar, it had some balls.

Back in its early days, the Night Horde MC had run Signal Bend Construction. The business had folded when there was no longer anything to build in town or anywhere around it. But Show had worked it, and the rest of the Horde were handy in one way or another—a man wasn’t a man unless he could make something with his hands. So they’d done the remodel themselves. Isaac had worked construction, too, and he was an artisan woodworker. He’d been off his feet and away from the club during the build, but he’d been around when they were drawing up plans. A lot of the end result had been his vision.

Havoc had enjoyed the fuck out of building the place up, and that had helped him deal with being responsible for it. He had an affection for the space, and a consequent kind of grudging affection for what was housed within it. He remembered that every time he walked in—the mingled aroma of oak and wine smelled right, somehow. Like they’d done good.

On this night, as late as it was, there were still two tables of people lingering over the last sips of wine in their glasses. And the folkie chick was at the bar, where Bonnie Halldorsen was tending. They were talking, and Bonnie was leaning on the bar with her arms crossed under her tits. She had a great rack. Like, a major league rack. Havoc stared at those titties every chance he got, because it was just wrong not to appreciate natural beauty like that. Or unnatural, whichever they were. Havoc didn’t know, and he had no intention of finding out. He did not fuck chicks off the roster. There was plenty of pussy to be had in the clubhouse, and those chicks knew the score. He liked a chick who got off his dick when he was done with her and then got gone.

But Bonnie was nice to look at, and there was no harm in that.

The folkie chick—Havoc could never remember her name, even though she’d been singing here once a week for a few months—was pretty cute, too, but too hippie dippie for his taste. He could just tell that she was the kind of chick who only ate organic crap and probably saved the whales or what the fuck ever. And she wore jeans and these embroidered cotton shirts that were too loose to show anything good. Sometimes they were a little see-through, though, and she always wore a black bra. That was cool.

She had good collarbones. That’s what he mostly noticed about her. He liked the way they stuck out. She wasn’t skinny—he didn’t think so, anyway; hard to tell under the loose tops—but her collarbones stuck out like handles. He thought that was sexy. He didn’t have a particular thing for collarbones, he didn’t think, but those he liked. And she wore all these necklaces, beaded things and silver pendants on leather straps, that drew his attention right there.

He liked her hair, too, he guessed. Wavy and dark. Layered, or whatchamacallit. Whatever—it was shiny. He’d noticed a couple of times that it almost sparkled under the spotlight in the corner when she was playing her whiny granola music.

So, okay, there was something good to look at there, too.

“Bonnie, get your tits off the bar and get moving on close. You’re gonna need to clear out fast tonight, so don’t fuck around.”

He didn’t miss the look the women gave each other—rolled eyes, a kind of disgusted pinch of mouth—and knew that was about him. He didn’t give a fuck. Not trying to be friends with any chick. He turned to the folkie and snapped his fingers.

“And you, your set’s over, right? So you can move it, too.”

“Corinne. Cory to my friends. You can stick with Corinne.”

“What?”

“My name. I don’t know what culture uses snaps and hand signals like that for language, but it’s not English, and I don’t understand it. My name is Corinne. Which you’ve heard several times. Did you experience some kind of head trauma as a child?”

He flipped her off. “How about that signal? You get that one? Get out.”

“Jesus, Havoc, hold on. I haven’t paid her yet.” The register opened with a ‘ding’ and Bonnie pulled four twenties out of the till.

Havoc watched her closely, making sure she took out exactly four twenties and then closed the till completely. When she handed the money over to the folkie—fuck her and her fancy name—Havoc sneered. “Mouthy bitches should remember who’s paying ‘em.”

He saw a ripple of uncertainty move across her face, and then her forehead wrinkled down the center for just a second, like she was as pissed at herself as she was at him, and then she waved the little stack of twenties in the air and leaned down for her guitar case.

“Bye, Bonnie. I’ll see you next week.”

“See ya, Cory. Tell Nolan hey for me.”

The folkie nodded at that and then left. Havoc noticed that the other tables had cleared—the bar was empty. Time to call Isaac and Show in.

Bonnie turned on him as soon as she was out the door. “Hav, you are a real bastard, you know? You can’t talk to people like that.”

He grinned. He didn’t mind getting shit from a chick. He liked stirring it up too much. “I don’t talk to people like that. I was talking to you two like that—and I wasn’t the one gettin’ all snippy. Get over it. And get your shit done. You want to be out of here in ten. And you want to keep your mouth shut, right?”

She’d obviously been ready to unload on him, but she pulled up at his last sentence. People in Signal Bend, real town people, knew the Horde. They knew the Horde took care of them and kept order. Handled their problems. Made things right. And made sure what was owed got paid. Everybody knew that, sometimes, that got messy. They didn’t necessarily want to see it get messy, but they understood.

“Yeah, okay. I just need to run the tape. Larry closes everything out and makes the deposit. So I can be out of here fast.”

He bet Larry made out the deposit. Well, he’d already made out his last one.

“Yeah. Get it done.”

She nodded and turned to the register. Havoc went to the front door and nodded to Len, who waved Isaac and Show in.

Time to play.

~oOo~