Cold Fusion (2 page)

Before I have a chance to say anything, I hear a hissing sound from the other side of the room. A woman standing by the blackboard is making a white board slide down from the ceiling, and the mechanism needs a bit of oiling. She’s a chubby, middle-aged woman with an Angela Davis sort of afro cut and a no-nonsense look. The room becomes silent.

“Everest, the door, please,” she says.

He turns around and locks it. While he comes back to sit on the bench behind me, the white board finishes descending from the ceiling. It’s covered with pictures of people connected by arrows that I understand to indicate some type of hierarchy in the group.

“Good morning, everyone. I’m Captain Martha Black, and I’ll be heading this unit from now on.” She looks at each of us in turn, as if challenging us to question her authority.
 

I follow her gaze and notice only three women in our group: Catherine, Captain Black, and a mousy little creature holding a pen and pad in the corner. When she notices me staring at her, she shakes her head as if to direct me to concentrate on Captain Black. Not that mousy after all.

“Our mission is to shake down this organization,” Captain Black says, pointing at the board. “Our targets call themselves the ‘Unrepentant Southern White Wizards.’ They’re a very well-organized bunch of prejudiced neo-Nazi dicks. They’re well connected, and so far they’ve been able to short-circuit all our attempts to take them down.”

While she speaks, I study the portraits of our targets. Unsurprisingly—since it’s an obvious prerequisite to become a member of a white supremacist group—all our targets are Caucasian. So are all the members of our group except our boss and Miss Not-So-Mousy.

“Some of their activities are perfectly legitimate,” Captain Black continues. “That’s how they clean the money they earn through their other enterprises. They’re so well connected and cautious that we haven’t had a chance to infiltrate them. Now we have an opportunity though, because the White Wizards have associated with a motorcycle club in which we already have a man. They use the MC to run some bars and a couple of strip joints.” She studies her audience to make sure she has our attention. “We’re going to infiltrate them through the MC. We’re lucky to have one motorcycle club expert with us. For those of you who don’t know him, Ernest Hatcher was born and raised in a MC.”

All heads turn toward Everest, who shakes his head and smiles.
 

“Everest—that’s his nickname—is the closest thing we have to a profiler in this unit. He’s got a master’s in psychology, and he’s very good at reading people.” There’s an unspoken threat in Captain Black’s words, as though she’s trying to tell us not to bullshit her. “The man we’re putting inside is David Mayfield.” She points in my direction, and all eyes land on me. “He’s just out of the academy, but he’s experienced. He was a MP for a few years.”
 

I put two fingers to my forehead in a mock salute and smile. I’m not sure whether I was picked for this task because of my experience or because my being from Point Lookout will make my cover stick, but when they offered the job during placement, I was glad they did.
 

“But as of today, David’s never been enlisted. That’s just the story his mother spun for the neighbors because he was actually doing time. He’s going in under his real name as a bad boy with a serious record. If anyone is to check, while he was in, he even managed to get his sentence extended by getting into fights because he hates ‘faggots, niggers, and spicks.’”
 

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the young woman with the pad cringe. Yeah, the N-word will do it every time.
 

Captain Black continues. “Access to this room will be restricted. The only keys to this door will be kept by Captain Steven Williams, Wilma Stone, our administrative assistant, and myself. Anytime you’re not working on the white board, I want it rolled up and hidden. You’re not to talk to anyone about the purpose of our task force. I understand that some of you may have nosy spouses or partners, so just tell them we’re going after a branch of organized crime and that you’ll lose your job if you talk. That is not an idle threat. I will fire your sorry asses if anything slips.”

“At least it’s nice that they’ve assigned you to the Point Lookout station,” my mother coos as she cleans up the breakfast table.
 

“You realize that doesn’t mean I’m going to stay home all day,” I tell her more harshly than I should.
 

“Of course not, my dear. I may be a little out of sorts, but I’m not totally out of touch with reality,” she answers sweetly, making me feel so guilty I hate myself.

I want to shake her to snap her out of the daze she’s been in since Dad died, but it won’t work. Nothing has worked. Lisa has tried everything but setting the house on fire, but she failed. Our mother is indeed out of touch with reality. She lives in romance-novel land, and the only thing she still has a handle on is taking care of the house.
 

Living with her has its advantages. I don’t have to pay rent, and I have someone who changes my sheets, takes care of my laundry, fills up the fridge, and always has my favorite food ready when I get home. That’s the way I sold my moving back in to make sure Lisa didn’t give up her dream by staying with Mom. Now Lisa’s in law school in New York, and I’m here. Most of the time, I’m happy to be back, but today is one of those days I wish I lived elsewhere. Since yesterday, Mom’s been focused on the name of the unit…

“If it’s a special task force, darling, it means that you’re assigned a special task. Why won’t you tell me what it is?”
 

“Mom, I don’t know yet and probably will not be allowed to tell you anything when I do.”
 

“That’s so silly,” she answered. “I never see anyone. Whom would I leak such precious information to?”

The answer to that one is easy—she would say it to anyone who would listen. I’m sure all the staff at the local supermarket knows that my sister is in law school in New York and that I just came back home, unharmed, after five years in the Army.

I plaster on a smile and ignore her question. If Lisa could put up with Mom during the five years I was away, the least I can do is stay with her as long as Lisa’s in law school. But one thing’s for sure—when Lisa returns, I won’t let her move back and sacrifice herself. Hell, I’d rather she move in with Brian at the MC clubhouse than stay here. That thought brings me a smile. I’d pay good money to see that happen!

I look at my watch. In half an hour, I need to be in a diner next to the Category Five Knights MC clubhouse. I’m meeting with a guy named Slider about a job as a bouncer in a strip club. I bring my coffee cup to the sink and give my mother a kiss.
 

She smiles and raises an eyebrow. Yeah, my biker’s clothing isn’t what she expected me to wear my second day on the job. She turns around and watches me slide in my favorite battered leather jacket.
 

“Drive safely,” she says as I walk out of the kitchen.

“Yeah, yeah, I will. Don’t wait up for me. I’ll probably get in late,” I answer before the door slams behind me.

Once in the garage, I look at my two bikes. What I need today is to show that I mean business. This means I don’t want to take the light cross-country machine but my other baby. I pick an old-fashioned helmet and get on my way.

As I ride, I remember what Captain Black said about Slider. He’s been undercover with the Category Five Knights for such a long time that when she met him, she wondered if he remembered he was still law enforcement. His loyalty to his MC scared her a bit, and she doesn’t seem like a woman who scares easily. Funny how that made me see the guy in a favorable light. He’s probably like Brian—conflicted. No one can live with a bunch of guys for years without bonding. It’s enough to make a man end up ripped by torn loyalties.

When I get to the diner, Slider’s outside, pacing by the door.
 

I recognize him from the picture Captain Black showed me, and I guess he’s seen my picture too, because the second I’m next to him, he says, “We met in a bar. I was hitting on your sister, you stepped in, and I didn’t care for the bitch enough to get into a fight.”

It takes me a couple seconds to understand that he’s not insulting my sister; he’s telling he’s worked on our legend. Should anybody ask, that’s how we met. I pull my wallet out and show him a picture of Lisa.
 

He takes a good look at her. “I would have fought you for a piece of that ass.”

I take a deep breath and remind myself that when you’re undercover, you need to be who you need to be twenty-four, seven. Somehow, I can’t get myself to thank him for what I guess was a compliment! I smile when I think of what Brian’s reaction would have been. The poor guy’s been in love with Lisa forever and has only managed to bang her once. He did it the night before we ran away, and the idiot had waited so long for her that he was done before he even got started. Poor Lisa!

“The bar was the Shamrock in Point Lookout,” I tell him. That’s the one bar where Lisa and I used to hang out to listen to country music.
 

“Fine, I know the place.” He studies my hands and the visible parts of my arms. “No tats?”

“None. I haven’t found anything that I’m ready to let under my skin yet,” I say.

He shrugs. “Let’s go in.”

We find an empty booth in the back corner, and the waitress magically appears to take our order. She notes what I ask for while staring at Slider. She’s obviously crazy about the man. She’s a plain girl in her thirties who I don’t think would be his type, but who knows? He smiles at her, a big predatory grin, and she blushes.

“The usual, sweetheart,” he tells her.
 

She takes my order and rushes away. When she returns, the waitress brings my eggs and the largest omelet I’ve ever seen. Slider looks up at her, nods, and grunts.

She hovers next to him until he says, “Thanks, honey.” When she’s gone, he tells me with a boyish grin, “I thought about a pity fuck, but then I’d have to change diners, and I kind of like this place. They make the best omelets.”
 

I nod and don’t comment.
 

“Do you like pussy or are you a backdoor kind of guy? No skin off my nose if you are, but it wouldn’t sit well with your new boss.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” I answer. “What I take to bed is always of the female persuasion.”

“Good, because you’re starting tomorrow night as a bouncer at the Bush Fire.” He notices my smirk and smiles too. “Yeah, it’s kind of an interesting name for a strip joint. Anyway, I manage the place as if it was my own, so I want my staff loyal to me and to me only. At times, there’re things happening that the owners are better off not knowing.”

“But the owners do come on the premises?” I ask. If they don’t, then there’s no point in my being undercover in that place.

“Yeah, they do. On the second floor, there’s a room where they meet to plot the way they’re going to take over the universe. There’re offices too. One’s mine—that’s where I do my administrative shit. The second’s a regular office where they get their own stuff done. It’s got concrete walls and a fucking steel-reinforced door that’s always locked. I got to look into it once when they left the door open because they thought I was gone already. It’s just an office with a filing cabinet and a computer. The last room is a bedroom—that’s the owners’ play room, they walk on the wild side. They get to bang the strippers who are in the mood for it.”

I remember Captain Black telling me that she found it deliciously ironic that those prejudiced bastards zero in on the more exotic beauties.
 

“You don’t get to touch the goods, by the way. Your job is to protect our talent against the assholes who won’t take no for an answer—nothing more.”
 

He sounds adamant. It’s good to know that the lines haven’t been totally blurred in his mind. I sure am happy about that.
 

Working nights comes easy enough. My job is every teenager’s wet dream. I get to be the hero of drop-dead gorgeous, half-naked girls who call me Prince Charming and hug me when I get an overeager john to back off.
 

Can’t blame the poor guys for going bat-crazy, because that’s precisely the purpose of the girls’ numbers. They strip and tease and hump the poles. It’s enough to make any healthy male lose it. So yeah, I pull them away because that’s my job, but I do it gently because I sympathize. Hey, during the first week, I walked around with a semi-permanent hard-on myself.
 

But not tonight. Tonight I’m on my best behavior ’cause I’m not only watching the room and the clients, I’m also taking care of a ten-year-old boy. His name is Toussaint, and his mom, Josette, is our superstar. Starla—that’s her stage name—brings in so many clients that the owners turn a blind eye when she comes to work with the kid. Sometimes she snorts away the babysitter’s money, so the kid tags along. This joint isn’t the healthiest place for a boy his age, but it’s probably better than staying alone in that fleabag motel they live in.

Toussaint somehow manages to do his homework in the girls’ dressing room, where he gets hugs and kisses from all his mother’s coworkers. He doesn’t seem fazed by the fact that they’re barely dressed and wearing an outrageous amount of makeup. This is all normal for him. When I look at him smile sweetly at them, I wonder what this is doing to his libido. Will he have a high-heel-and-sequin fetish or go for a wholesome girl-next-door type? Who knows?
 

His face lights up when he spots me. “Bonjou’, David!”
 

“Bonjou’, Toussaint.” I work to pronounce it the way he has instructed me, dropping the R
at the end of the French greeting. He says that if I’m going to correct his English, he should teach me something in return, so I’m learning bits of Créole. “I’m here to take you to your suite, my prince.”

“You sure Slider don’t mind?” Toussaint asks.