Arrow of Time (31 page)

“
Yeah?”

“
Next time you need help or a favor, you ask me first.”

“
So bossy.”

He grabbed my ass and lifted me up until I was face to face with him. “You know it, woman. But I’m your boss and no one else's.”

“Good to know. And I’ll ask you next time. I just didn’t think about it since you don’t seem to want me at your place.”

“
Not about that, your place is nicer than mine.”

“
Okay.”

“
And now I’m gonna have to go out and hear about fucking at Brick’s again.”

“
All day?”

“
All day, baby!” He gave her one more kiss before putting her back down. “Still love you.”

“
Love you, too.”

There was a knock on the door and Brick came in. “You kids okay?”

“Yeah,” I said and picked up my bag.

Brick looked at the desk and the mess while shaking his head with a crooked smile on his lips. “Well used, that desk. Sturdy thing,” he said and leaned against the doorpost.

“Eww, I fucked in the same spot as Lanie.”

Dawg laughed and pushed me towards the door. “I’ll clean up here. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Buy condoms, I think we’re out.”

He nodded and looked around before starting to pick stuff up. I watched him for a few seconds before I closed the door. Bossy fucking bikers.

-o0o-

Dawg picked up the first pile of papers and looked at Brick when he started to help him.

“I'll take care of it.”

“
Okay,” Brick said, sat down in the chair and lit a cigarette. “Wolf had a call from his guy at precinct. Do you know Jessica?”

“
The stripper? Not really. What about her?”

Blond thing, pretty, big tits. When she started working at BB she'd always gone straight home after work. Hadn't been hanging out at the club at all. She'd been hitting on him pretty hard, though, but had made it clear that she wasn't a sweetbutt, and he made it equally clear that he wasn't interested in her as anything but one. He'd seen her doing similar things to other single members. He'd pegged her as one of those girls hoping to become an Old Lady and had stayed the fuck away from her because of it. After a few months she'd started to visit the club more often, most often with Bucket or Mace.

“She was arrested last week, and Juan Herrera posted her bail.”

Dawg turned around and started at Brick. He knew very well who that was. “Who knows?”

“You, me, Wolf, Bear and Mech. She's working as we speak, Bear has called Ella to get her phone. Mech is gonna go through it while running her info again.”

It had been two months since the attack at the warehouse, they'd gone through everything and everyone. Even he had helped Mech, and he was by no means a computer genius. They'd called
everyone
they knew and told people to keep an eye out for anything that could be related to Phoenix Águilas, and it looked like it finally had paid off.

“
Want me to go up there with Bull to prepare?”

“
No. Ella is keeping an eye on her, making sure she'll stay after closing. We'll pick her up from there and take her up to the cabin. I'll have Bull and Sisco go up there and then come back. You can wait here.”

They sat in silence. Questioning a woman wasn't something he looked forward to, and he knew that no one else did either. But if she was the one who'd sold them out, they needed to know. And they needed to know exactly what she'd passed forward.

“How did we miss her?” He asked and he didn't mean missed her being the source. More missed her in the initial check up.

“
I looked at her papers. From Missouri, some hickville town. There was nothing standing out at all.”

“
I'll call Edie, tell her I'll be late.”

“
Yeah, good idea.” With a deep sigh Brick stood up. “So you two are okay?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Good, I don't want you fucking in my house any more than you want to fuck there.”

“
I've already fucked in your house.”

“
You know what I mean!”

“
I do.”

Once Brick was out, he put the rest back on the desk and picked up his phone to call Edie. He really wasn't looking forward to that night.

-o0o-

Bull didn't know much. Brick had called him, told him to bring Sisco and get the cabin ready and then meet them at the BB. He walked inside and was met by Brick, Bear, Dawg, Wolf and Ella.

“Who?” He asked and looked around.

“
Jessica,” Brick said and pointed at a gagged blond.

He recognized her. He'd had some blowjobs, but no more than that. He stared at Brick. Taking someone up to the cabin was almost solely a one-way trip and very rarely women. Last time it had happened it was his ex-wife, and she
did
get a return ticket to Phoenix and was told to stay the fuck away. But he didn't question it, he gave Brick a nod and grabbed Dawg to go and get the van. None of them talked. He parked out back from the BB and waited. Two minutes later, Brick and Bear came out with the gagged girl, threw her in the van and closed the door.

She was trying to scream through the gag, and Bull turned around, grabbed ahold of her hair and stared at her until she shut up.

“You're gonna need your strength, so I suggest you shut the fuck up until we take that gag off you.”

He had no fucking idea what this was about, and he wasn't going to ask Dawg while the bitch was in the back of the van. When he took a look at Dawg, he decided that he wasn't going to ask him at all. He was furious, which made him wonder if she'd said something before they gagged her, or if Dawg was just in a generally bad mood.

At the cabin, he got out, grabbed Jessica and hauled her inside, tying her to a chair, and then went back out to wait for Bull, Bear and Wolf.

“
What the fuck is this about?” He asked when they got off their bikes.

“
Jessica was arrested last week, and a Juan Herrera bailed her out.”

Bull took a deep breath. “Is it the Juan Herrera I think it is?”

“It is,” Wolf nodded. “My guy in county gave me a call. I'd mentioned we were looking for Phoenix Águilas, and he knew this guy, said it was one of their sergeants, so it's the one you think it is. I called Bear, and he had Ella check her phone. Mech is working on the data, but he got the basics and restored some of her texts.”

Wolf threw a phone, he assumed Jessica's, and he looked through the texts. It was bad. At the same time he wasn't sure how bad it could be. Jessica wasn't one of the regular sweetbutts, came around to party now and then and even if she had been, they didn't talk in front of the girls.

“Who is she? I mean, we do background checks, can't be someone that close to them? Since we just re-did them all. And she's definitely not Mexican, only have to look at her to see that.”

“
We think she's just bought,” Brick answered. “At least that's the current theory. There's nothing else that fits.”

“
That's why we pay the girls well, so they can't be bought,” Bull pointed out. “It has to be something else.”

“
Why don't we ask her?” Dawg said behind them. “Think she'll tell us whatever we want to know.”

The others looked at each other and nodded before walking inside. Bull walked up to Jessica and pulled off her gag.

“Please...” she started and he put his hand over her mouth.

“
Begging isn't going to get you anywhere. So listen to the man and tell him everything he wants to know, but no begging. That clear?”

She looked at him with big eyes and nodded. He turned and looked at Brick who pulled up a chair.

“Here's what we know, Juan Herrera bailed you out last week when you were arrested and he's high up in the hierarchy within the Phoenix Águilas. The fact that he bothered to bail you out means you're important to them. And if you're important to them while working at
our
strip club, it makes me a bit worried. It makes me think you're feeding them intel. My guess would be that you're the one who told them about the warehouse, and they're hoping that you'll find out where we grow our pot. How am I doing, darlin'?”

Her eyes were big, tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she nodded. She'd probably thought that she'd be safe with him bailing her out, since it wasn't public record who paid the bail. It was still incredibly stupid of them. But then their intelligence level hadn't exactly dazzled Bull so far. He was mostly curious about how she'd found out about the warehouse.

“Tell me
everything
,” Brick said.

“
I worked for them, at one of their clubs. They told me that I could get out of there, if I could get a job at your club...” She kept her eyes on Brick. “So I applied... their clubs aren't like yours... so... I just wanted to get out.”

“
Why didn't you just quit?” Wolf asked in a harsh voice.

“
I didn't volunteer for the job. A lot of the girls there don’t. It's just... girls, they lure them in, pick them up, hook them on drugs, get them to prostitute themselves and threaten to tell their parents what they've done.”

Bull knew about it, trafficking. As oppose to most people he also knew that a scary big part of the trafficking victims in the US were American girls. But it still didn't add up with the info he'd had from her so far. He looked at Brick, knowing he knew the same thing and he asked just what Bull would've asked.

“We did a background check, you're not wanted or reported missing.”

“
They gave me the identity of one of the other girls. One of the regulars. No one is looking for her, and I looked a lot like her.”

“
Why not send her?”

“
She's dead.”

“
Keep going,” was the only thing Brick said.

“
I just had to tell them how things worked, keep them informed, listen to you talking at the strip club, see how you seemed to react and...” She sniveled. “Then it changed.”

“
How?”

“
They wanted me to hook up with one of you. They said that if I was whoring around you wouldn't tell me anything, but if I was one of your girlfriends or just steady pussy...”

“
Who?” Bull said. If she had, in fact, been someone’s pussy, he didn't know about it, and he usually knew about that stuff.

“
Anyone. I... tried, but,” she glanced at Dawg, so she'd obviously tried with him. “I... couldn't. So they... told me to try other things or they'd come and pick me up, get me back to their club.”

“
What
things?
”

“
I-I-I don't know. I poked around, talked to the girls who you hang with, found out you're selling pot and... they wanted me to check out your office, but I didn't find anything there.”

They weren't stupid enough to have anything on paper. What they had was on computers secured by Mech. She would've never been able to access that.

“Then they told me that I had to... try, anyway, and I started hanging at the club more. As pussy.”

He might've seen her with Mace and Bucket a few times, but not enough for her to find anything out from them. They
never
talked to the sweetbutts about the club. No one should be that stupid. Bucket wasn't there, but Mace was standing slightly behind her and wasn't showing any emotions at all. More importantly, he didn't look worried, so he wasn't the one who'd told her about the warehouse.

“
And the warehouse?” Brick asked.

“
I was with Haze, he got a call, said something about a warehouse and brought me, not there, but a rest stop close by.”

It wouldn't be hard for them to find all the warehouses close by, see which ones that seemed secure. If you had a general area it wasn't complicated. What was hard was to believe that Haze had been that fucking stupid. He looked at Brick.

They'd talked about it. He'd gotten Haze drunk, and he was a talker; he was also obviously a moron. He'd had his doubts, and he knew he wasn't the only one. He turned to Wolf, who shook his head. Wolf was Haze's sponsor and he had a feeling they wouldn't even have to bother with a vote. If your sponsor wanted you out, you were out, that easy. No vote, no nothing. And Wolf would want him out after this.

Brick gave him a nod, and he picked up a pair of pliers, moved to the back of the chair, took her hand. That's when she started to scream.

“You're doing great,” he growled into her ear. “Now tell me the other things.”

“
What other things?” She howled.