Biker (2 page)

“That's Money!” he said. “Money in the bank. He got jaguar in his blood, man.”

“Nice Staffy,” Pratt said.

The Skull turned toward him with pinpoint pupils. “What choo say?”

“Nice-looking Staffy.”

“The fuck business is it of chours?”

Pratt held the leader's angry gaze. “None. I just know a good Staffy when I see one. I'd bet on that dog.”

The leader stared at him with such fury Pratt steeled himself for attack. The prez was like some of the pits Pratt had worked with in the joint. You didn't know if they would bite you or lick your hand. Like a switch was thrown, the Skull's face morphed from anger to bonhomie as he grinned snarkily. “What's choor name, motherfucker?”

“Josh Pratt. What's yours?”

“Manny Robles. These scumbags are Dog Breath, Taco and Deuce. Make room for Josh Pratt. Choo know what, Josh? Choo
can
bet on that dog! What are you drinkin'?”

Pratt quickly drained his glass. “Bud.”

Taco, who had the Harley logo tattooed on his forehead, looked at him with undisguised malice.

“Hey Annie honey!” Robles yelled, making a circular motion with his hand. “'Nother round!” He handed the photo of the pit bull to Pratt. “Sir Money his own bad self. He's fighting Chucho's Machine Gun, eighteen and oh.” Robles watched Pratt closely for his reaction.

“Really. I would like to see that.”

“Ride with us you'll see it.” Robles held his hand up for a dap.

“How do we know this guy ain't a cop?” Taco said.

“Good question. Here's one way to find out.” Robles reached inside his vest and removed a glass vial filled with white powder, took off the lid, shook a lump out on the smeared bar top and put the jar away. Robles flipped out a balisong knife with a flashy reverse maneuver and wrangled the powder into a line. Taco grabbed a straw from the bar and used his boot knife to cut off a three-inch segment, which he handed to Pratt.

“Hoover that,” he said.

CHAPTER 3

“What is it?” Pratt said.

“What the fuck do you care?” Taco said. His swarthy skin was pockmarked like the moon. “You want to ride with the Aztec Skulls you do the line.”

“'Cause I like cocaine but I don't like meth,” Pratt said.

Robles put a hand on his shoulder. “Well choo in luck 'cause that there's straight from Hugo Chavez' house stash.”

Pratt had done his share of coke and knew what to expect. He'd come to dread the howling void it left when it wore off, the countless wasted nights lying awake sweating, listening to his pulse. He hadn't done coke in years. One line. It would be fun for the first twenty minutes, not so much riding a bike at night.

Pratt took the straw, leaned over the bar and snorted half the line. He put the straw in his other nostril and did the other half. A surge of electricity jolted his nervous system. Instantly everything seemed brighter and sharper. Strength and reflexes grew exponentially. The boom of the juke's bass popped his soles like a suspension bridge. The waitress sashayed their way holding a tin tray containing five Buds and five shots.

Robles laid out lines for the boys.

Taco grabbed his shot, tossed it back and slammed the glass on the bar glaring at Pratt, daring him to do the same.

Fuck
, Pratt thought. He took a shot and slammed it home. He got in Taco's face, so close he could connect the blackheads like constellations. “Still think I'm a cop?”

“I don't know, homes. Maybe you wearin' a wire.”

Pratt could smell Taco's rank animal scent. “It ain't enough you see me snortin' blow, now you want to do a pat-down? You'd get off on that, wouldn't you?” Robles, Dog Breath and Deuce laughed. Taco showed his teeth. Pratt pulled his shirt out of his pants to reveal a six-pack with nothing on it but ink.

Robles put his hand on Pratt's shoulder. “It's cool, bro. It's cool. Taco's been up for three days. He won't sleep until he mangles some motherfucker.”

“Hey Taco man,” Dog Breath said. He was a young, powerfully built Hispanic with a goatee. “You get in another fight here they gonna eighty-six us. Chill, dude.”

“Let's ride,” Robles said. “Tell them fuckers.”

Deuce went back to the pool tables and cued the brothers. People pulled away from the gang as they headed for the door like Poison taking the stage. Outside they climbed on their bikes.

Robles was parked next to Pratt. Robles rose up and came down on the kick starter three times before the engine roared to life with a shriek that made trash dance on the sidewalk.

Robles turned toward Pratt. “HEADIN' FOR THE ILLINOIS BORDER. JUST HANG WITH US!” Robles faced front and screwed two wax earplugs into his ears. Pratt reached in his tank bag and did the same.

Pratt gave him the thumbs-up, feeling the liquor in his belly, a bright sharp glaze in his head. He could handle it. Nothing to it. Muscle memory. By the time they got to the dog fight the coke would have run its course, leaving him jangly and wanting more. Robles in the lead, they pulled out one by one and headed up Williamson toward the State Capitol. Taco waited until Pratt pulled in line behind Deuce before leaving the curb.

They cut over to East Washington, where they picked up a Dane County Sheriff's cruiser that followed them around the Square, out West Washington to the Beltline. Pratt felt the atavistic satisfaction of being part of the pack. Nobody fucked with the pack. It must be like how a wolf felt. Or a jackal. They turned south on Highway 14. The county mountie followed them all the way to the county line. In his rearview Pratt saw the big HPO get out of his car with a Smokey hat and stand there watching until they were out of sight.

At Brooklyn they turned off the highway onto a county road.

The bikers headed south through heavily forested hills, the din of their engines careening off the trees and rolling over the fields. Robles set an 80-mile-per-hour pace. The Aztec Skulls clustered in tight formation like fighter planes. Pratt always thought he had too much imagination to ride. He could easily envision the aftermath of a clash at speed. He'd seen it happen. Twisted bikes, smashed bodies. No one wearing helmets. Brains like spilled oatmeal.

Stay cool, Josh. Don't freak yourself out. Light touch on the bars and keep your eyes down the road
. Fucking Taco was right on his taillight. If Pratt had to brake there'd be a collision. The convoy entered a thickly wooded area, trees coming right up to the ditch. The deer was the most lethal animal in North America. It caused 235 fatalities a year. It leaped in front of traffic in every state, but particularly in Wisconsin. Pratt nervously eyed the tree line. Any deer stupid enough to ignore their rolling thunder deserved to die. Pratt did not want to join them. They were clustered so tightly together that if one went down they all would.

Pratt laid off the throttle. Taco pulled up alongside and shouted, “Twist it, homes! We ain't fallin' behind!” Taco opened his throttle and shot forward, his bare-bones 102-inch chopper exploding with torque and sound, 130-decibel Bronx cheer. Pratt struggled to keep up but at least he was now the tail and didn't have to worry about being back-ended by some cokehead.

They roared through a tunnel of trees, leaves and twigs jumping in their wake. They entered a timeless space where nothing existed but the infinite road and the sensation of speed. No thought, no self, only the droning groove of the engine through seat and handlebars into the bones and the wind whipping past. It brought back memories of countless nights running with the Bedouins.
My pappy said
, “
Son you're gonna drive me to drinkin' if you don't stop drivin' that hot rod Lincoln
.” Pratt couldn't get it out of his head. The night smelled rich with loam and pine. Moonlight dappled the road. The forest dropped away and they were once again in farmland, clusters of lights like tiny freighters on the rolling prairie. Somewhere south of Janesville the smooth blacktop changed abruptly to tattered asphalt as they crossed into Illinois.

The convoy turned off onto winding gravel. Pratt caught a glimpse of the street sign: Jorgensen Road. A farm up ahead. Robles slowed down. The bikes clustered at the gate. There was a dude with a sawed-off. He was Mexican, had a shaved skull the shape of a howitzer shell and wore a ground-length duster. Robles hung inside the gate while the others roared into the farmyard. Pratt pulled up. The dude with the shotgun eyeballed him with thinly veiled disgust.

“Who's this?” he grunted.

“He's with me,” Robles said.

Howitzer waved them through. There were a dozen-plus bikes parked on the hard-packed earth outside the barn, plus a half dozen pick-ups and an old Ford van. Fifty yards away and up three steps was the two-story wood-frame farmhouse, lush planters hanging incongruously from the veranda. The sound of a locomotive emanated from inside the brightly lit barn before breaking down into its components. Men shouted and dogs snarled. It was the opposite of music. The keening yowl of a dog in pain cut like a knife.

Pratt pulled in next to Taco, reached in his tank bag and tossed a coffee can lid on the ground. He kicked the stand out onto the lid. He followed the Skulls into the barn where three dozen men, most in leather and colors, surrounded a fighting ring that was a fifteen-foot square enclosed by a four-foot wood fence. The floor of the ring was covered with straw, much of it stained black from blood. Outside the ring, men tended their dogs, thick-shouldered scarred pit bulls who'd known neither love nor tenderness. A panting, downed dog lay on the straw. Its owner entered through a gate, grabbed the gasping animal by the scruff of its neck and dragged it out of the barn whimpering in terror.

Seconds later there was a gunshot.

Pratt looked around and wished he hadn't. A man beat a dog with a heavy leather strap. “You! Worthless! Piece! Of! Shit!” The dog lay on its back, an arc of yellow piss hitting its belly in terror. Pratt forced himself to look away.

It was just dumb luck. Lowry hadn't known about Pratt's biker past. The fund raiser had serendipitously called on the one private investigator in town who knew what had happened and where to go. Luck. That's all it was. Pratt would keep telling himself that in the days to come.

Pratt had never liked dogfights, and the Bedouins never had a thing to do with them. But a lot of bikers did.

Pratt loved dogs. He'd loved Barkley most of all. He remembered the day when Duane, his father, brought home the squirming ball of fur and handed it to him. “Here. Don't say I never gave you nothin'.” It had been Pratt's tenth birthday.

The pup had chewed its way through their rented trailer, chewing one of Duane's good cowboy boots. Duane came home shit-faced, saw the boot and went after Barkley with a .357.

“No Duane!” Josh shouted, grasping the dog and leaping out into the trailer park, where he hid in the equipment shed all night until his father passed out and it was safe to sneak back into the house. Duane was still passed out when Josh got up the next morning and took the 7:00 bus for school after stashing Barkley with a friend.

Pratt missed Barkley more than Duane.

About half the crowd was Latino, the rest redneck trash like him. No women. A man built like a Sherman tank, arms blue with ink, dragged his snarling “Staffy” into the ring. As if they could rub the stink off what they did by calling their pit bulls Staffordshire Terriers. A freak in Oshkosh B'Gosh coveralls, skin scarlet with rosacea and 'roids, followed restraining a lunging beast, its fur streaked with blood where teeth had gouged furrows in its flesh.

Pratt had seen enough. He looked around. Money was changing hands. All eyes were on the ring. The Skulls snorted ice and tossed back Jell-O shots from a Coleman cooler. Pratt edged out the door. Nobody gave a shit.

The yard was lit from a pair of flood lamps mounted high on the barn. The air was cooler outside. The soundtrack of hell emanated from within. The old Ford van was parked sixty feet away in shadow, off by itself. As Pratt approached he heard whimpering and scratching from within.

The rear doors contained no windows and were not locked. Pratt opened the doors with a nerve-wrenching shriek. A raw animal stench, part shit, part fear, nearly knocked him down. The back of the van contained three rows of cages on each side in which small dogs and cats had been imprisoned without water or bedding. The floor was covered with tools. One cage held a Yorkie with a sequined collar. Another held a marmalade cat. Two schnauzers yapped at him in desperation.

“George and Gracie I presume,” Pratt said reaching for the cages. He eased them out and set them on the ground.

“HEY ASSWIPE,” penetrated Pratt's head like a particle beam. “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?”

CHAPTER 4

The coke had left Pratt jittery. He rode that jitter and the frisson of fear and excitement he got from the Voice. A familiar fury amped up his nervous system, a willingness to engage, an I-don't-give-a-fuck ethos. His mind worked strikes, take-downs, submissions. Ignoring the Voice, Pratt scanned the floor and spied an ax handle.

“HEY MOTHERFUCKER I'M TALKING TO YOU,” the Voice blasted. Pratt slammed the van doors shut, shoving the caged schnauzers behind him with his foot. He held the ax handle by his left leg and looked at the Voice.

A skinhead the size of a Kodiak bear wearing a black leather vest that highlighted his massive biceps and pecs strode toward Pratt in steel-toed boots. An unreadable message in blue Gothic script splayed across his chest. The tat on his left arm showed a rattlesnake winding through a skull. The tats on his right arm were so thick they looked like a screen. He had a metal stud in the center of his chin over a Billy goatee that looked like a woman's pussy hair. A patch on his vest identified him as a Mastodon out of the Quad Cities. The Mastodon's homeboys boiled out of the barn joined by most of the house, high on ice and Jell-O shots.