Highway to Heaven (22 page)

He saw a couple of vehicles that looked like
cop cars, but many of the brothers bought old cages at auction if
the interceptor motors were still under the hood and customized the
ugly fuckers into sweet rides that sold for a pretty profit. So it
didn’t overly concern him much.

He didn’t want to be here, hell, he didn’t
want to be much of anywhere lately, at least not for a few months
now. Ever since he’d let Selma fly in fact. He had always been a
lobo, free from shackles and baggage. No woman could hold him for
longer than a few months at a time. Those times were damn good
ones, at least from his point of view, but sooner than later the
females started demanding permanency, and that
was not
in
his vocabulary. Until early last year, when he met Selma, she was
everything he wasn’t.

She was an educated woman, a lawyer in fact.
She was beautiful in the way a mature woman who knew her worth was
beautiful. Selma made him feel like a better man. Like he was
smarter than he actually was, and she rode his prick like it was a
trick pony any time, and just about anywhere the notion hit them.
She was younger than he was by fourteen years, but it didn’t make
no never mind to either of them. She looked damned good perched on
the thick cushioned bitch seat he’d bought for her little ass to
sit behind him on while they enjoyed feeling the wind on their
knees and the joy of freedom as the wind whipped past their
cheeks.

He’d been avoiding the clubhouse, and his old
pastimes held no interest for him. He had a pack of smokes in his
pocket nowadays instead of his sugar packets. Why worry about dying
of lung cancer if nobody was around to care anyway. He wasn’t ready
to hang himself, but the days after letting his lady loose, well
that hanging idea hadn’t seemed like such a bad notion.

She got elected to her dream job of being a
circuit court judge, and he was happy for her, more happy than she
probably would believe. She wanted to make a difference, and he let
her go so she could. Oh she started out wanting him to continue to
be part of her life, but the demands of that were too much for a
man like him to concede to.

He wasn’t a show horse, never had been, and
when she asked him to wear a suit and tie, he’d almost laughed his
ass off. Next request was to cut his hair to a more acceptable
style for the image of a judge’s escort to appear. He’d flatly
refused both of her requests in a harsh and uncompromising way.

“I ain’t no tamed whipped pup, woman, you
can’t rope the wind or cage a wild thing like me. I’m a biker
tramp, and I ain’t got no want to wear fancy clothes and sit down
to dinner holding my pinky up while I have to drink some watery
fuckin’ tea or some shit like that.”

He had regrets, but there was no way he would
have missed knowing her even if he could. She was the bright spot
in his life, and he was beginning to acknowledge that she’d taken a
big ol’ chunk of him when he’d made love to her the last time. He’d
put everything he had in that last session, he wanted her to always
remember him.

He walked into the club and stopped short.
Big Dog was lookin’ concerned, and the place was about as quiet as
he’d seen since the funeral for Farley a couple of years ago. Two
men in funeral suits were sitting at the table with Big Dog. Fuck,
this was some kind of setup. The big man gave him a slight nod, and
Charlie took a couple of moments to center himself. He hated
fuckin’ cops.

Tiny handed him a beer as he walked by, and
he nodded to the man in thanks, and kept on moving. He stood behind
the suits and said, “Hey, Big D, what’s going on?”

The two men tried to crane their necks to see
the man they’d come to see, but the prez waved him into a chair on
his right side. Charlie hesitated for a few heartbeats and sat
down. No one spoke. He didn’t like the way the cross-eyed fuckers
were staring at him. He drained his beer and slowly placed it on
the table in front of him before folding his hands and looking
directly at the bigger of the two men.

“Okay, I’m here, there must be a reason for
this unsolicited visit. Let’s get on with you tellin’ me what you
think you can accuse me of doing, and I’ll deny it. Go ahead, I’m
not in a bad mood or nothin’.”

The two glanced at each other and the short
one nodded. “You are Charles Vernon?” Charlie nodded, not bothering
to answer verbally, what would be the point?

“I’m Agent Hill, and this is my partner Agent
Scott. We’re here to ask you a few questions about a woman that we
believe you know.” He opened the file in front of him and passed
over a glossy eight by ten of Selma. Seeing her made his guts
tighten, but outwardly he nodded.

“Yeah, I know her, she’s a good woman and a
fair judge.” Seeing the agent fingering the file, he got a tingle
up his spine. “Why dontcha just come out with it? I need another
beer, but since I don’t drink with strangers and people I don’t
trust. I have to wait till you’re done beatin’ around the fuckin’
bush. Is there a problem with me being her friend?”

Both agents shook their heads and looked at
Big Dog before continuing. He shrugged his shoulders and folded his
hands across his belly as he continued to lounge in the chair.

Agent Hill cleared his throat and sighed. He
blew out his breath and blurted it out. “The Honorable Judge Selma
Pearson has disappeared, and we have reason to believe her life is
in danger.”