Integrity Has No Bounds (9 page)

“While they’re working, you boys are our
guests right here at the clubhouse. If you try to leave before you
get the go-ahead, you won’t be here as guests, you get me?”

Sweat dotted Fingers’s forehead, and while
Orin appeared calm on the outside, Baron saw the man kept
swallowing. Fuck, he knew they’d been skimming money. He kept a
record of every transaction the club made, one set of books was
legitimate business, and the other not so legitimate. These two
thought they were smarter than the rest of them, they would pay for
their error in judgment.

Skids and Burger escorted them from the room
while John waited for the ass chewing he had coming. He didn’t have
long to wait. Once Baron put the bogus ledgers to the side, he
folded his hands on the desk and stared at him. John waited him
out, there was no point in denying that he was guilty of a couple
of minor indiscretions, the phone call was a spur of the moment
thing, even if he had reason to hang up on Baron at the time.

“So, this is what I want from you, and don’t
give me any shit, I’ve been buried in a damn sty of it all fuckin’
day. That phone call just got the ball rolling so tell me why I
shouldn’t kick your ass from here to the corner, and make it one of
those in-depth stories, the kind where I get all the information,
not just the fill in the blank version. You know I’ve got your
back, but this shit is getting real close to a war with those gator
lickers. Leech and the boys started a collection for you to pick
from to get the information you want, and I had to discuss the
issue with them today when I saw guest number two coming through
the blocks, followed by Charm driving right up to the door a half
hour ago and popping the trunk.”

He watched John carefully, readying himself
to grab the man when he gave him the news.

“One of those boys you fucked up was Pappy
D’s youngest, and it appears that you weren’t the only one who went
off the rez today. Our Miss Charming snagged one of the Rats by
flattening her tire on the side of I-30 about two miles out of
Murky Carl’s gator farm. He was real nice to Charm and changed her
tire, and when he put the flat in her trunk, he got tasered in the
neck for his troubles.” He had to smile as he remembered his
astonishment when he saw what she’d done.

“She says she owes you for something, and
it’s just her way of paying you back. You owe the club a roll of
duct tape, she used the whole thing wrapping him up to keep him
from ‘getting himself all upset.’ What she didn’t know, is that her
fish is the biggest one of the bunch aside from Pappy D, she scored
his oldest boy, Donnie Lee Dean. They say he’s slated to be Pappy’s
replacement, so it appears I’m not the only one who has your
interests at heart. Now talk.”

John didn’t know what made him sit back down
in the chair that he almost jumped out of to get his hands on the
fucker in the blocks. Instead of running out to the back, he began
telling Baron every detail of the past few days, and concluding
with his self-assessment.

“I had to wait until that cockbite
son-of-a-bitch hurt her before I could grab my balls and admit that
I can make my own spot in her life. She’s not buying it yet, but
she will, once I have the time to convince her I’m sincere.

“I’ll teach her how to protect herself, but
she’s scared of the fucker, and scared people make last second
hesitations. I have a big hate going on for him, he violated my
woman, and there’s no rock he can hide under that I won’t find
him.”

Baron could see that John was as mad at
himself as he was at the fuck that hurt Stevie. He remembered the
way he’d felt about someone hurting Stretch. Just thinking about
that shit made him want to kill the dead fucker.

“We have a problem here, I can’t let you hurt
Donnie Lee too much unless we get a club vote. You know this, so
think about what you plan to do with him before you go off on the
man. I’m not looking for an affiliation, I’m happier than hell when
they stay in their swamp, but they made gestures last year when
Jean Lefore tried to pull his shit. Mostly because they would just
be cannon fodder in the middle. They had enough sense to reject
that South American drug peddler. We were the lesser of evils.”

John remembered, it had taken most of the
smaller clubs and both the Bastards and Lucifer’s Breed to send
those fucks away from the tri-state area.

He nodded at Baron, and the men shook hands
before John left the room to make a visit to Donnie Lee Dean.

*****

Donnie was cursing the split tail that
suckered him. If he ever got the chance, she was gonna get exactly
what she deserved, and he would enjoy every minute punishing her
for daring to fuck him over. That skinny ass of hers was gonna feel
his whip, and he entertained himself with fantasies of slapping her
generous tits until she screamed and begged him to stop.

He should’ve known better than to believe a
beautiful woman like that driving a baby blue Camero from the early
70’s was harmless, but that car was fuckin’ cherry. The woman was
long legged, and bending over the trunk trying to get the spare
tire out wearing ass cheek baring shorts and a cropped top that her
tits were spilling out of as she straightened up when he stopped to
help her. She was tall and long limbed, and thinking of the way she
would thank him made him smile and drop right into her trap.

The spot on his neck where she’d laid that
fuckin Taser itched, and the duct tape sticky shit was tangled in
the few hairs left on his damned arms once that big motherfucker
they called Skids had sliced through and then peeled the shit from
his body. Skids, and two other fuckers named Leech and Burger,
replaced the duct tape with steel cuffs and leg irons. He was
currently leashed to an eyebolt secured in the cement floor of a
room that was constructed of blocks. There was a bucket in the
corner for him to do his business or take a piss. At least they
left his hands cuffed in front of him.

The bastard Burger had told him, “I’m cuffing
you in front, ‘cause I ain’t holding your pecker for you to take a
piss, and I ain’t planning on spoon feeding your ass either. Try
any stupid shit and you won’t like what happens. You ain’t gonna
take my advice to heart, ‘cause you Swamp Rats just don’t learn
easy, but when John gets here, you might want to tell him what he
wants to know, it’ll save you some teeth and a whole world of
hurt.”

The asshole smiled then, and said “Hell, boy,
it might save your life. Did you know our boy was a Ranger in the
Army? If he has to head back south, who knows who might be in his
path to the fucker that you fools are protectin’.”

He shook his head and laughed as they heard a
door slam and a man scream. “You don’t happen to know a Rat by the
tag of Sonny Paulson? Nah, you wouldn’t know him by his scream now
would you? Swamp Rats squeal when they’re hurt don’t they?” He
laughed as he shut the door behind him, leaving Donnie behind to
deal with his thoughts.

Thinking about fuckin’ that bitch up just
made his dick hard, and he didn’t want his jailers to see him
sittin’ here in cuffs with a hard-on. They might get the wrong
idea, and that wasn’t something he wanted to deal with.

Aside from his miscalculation in picking that
bar on the state line, the rest of this shit was all Candle’s
doing. He was tired of the entire thing. He couldn’t give Candle
up, not without a world of shit coming down on his head. So he came
up with a plan that should make everyone happy.

By the time the door opened again, he was
prepared for just about any scenario. He’d been hearing the screams
coming through the door for the past two hours, and it sounded like
they were doling out pain to Sonny slowly over time. He wasn’t a
close friend of the brother, but Sonny hadn’t done anything to
deserve this kind of shit that he knew of either.

A big motherfucker walked into the room and
he held the door for the one called Skids to carry in two chairs.
The big fucker had to be John. The chairs were set down in the
middle of the room, and Skids left them alone.

John sat in one of the chairs and pushed the
other one toward Donnie. “Sit.” Donnie shrugged his shoulders and
sat. Whatever happened, he was ready, at least that was what he
told himself. He was surprised when the man pulled two cans of beer
from his pocket and handed one over to him. He didn’t know what
this fucker was up to, but he was powerful thirsty, so he popped
the top and took a couple of draws on the ice cold liquid before
John began to speak.

“Okay, Donnie Lee Dean, it’s like this. I
want the cowardly motherfucker that got his rocks off on
frightening and violating my woman. I can say with confidence that
I could beat you until you’d need some poor hag to wipe your chin
and sing you nursery rhymes, and you won’t give your brother up.”
He popped the top of his own beer and swallowed a good portion of
it, and continued.

“I understand you happen to be Pappy D’s kid,
and are the heir apparent to the leadership role of the Swamp Rats.
Don’t get that pissed look either, you want my fuckin’ respect,
boy, you gotta fuckin’ earn it. From everything I’ve seen and
heard, there isn’t one of you worth the cost of the bullet it’d
take to shoot you with.

“You look surprised, but your club is a
fuckin’ disgrace to legitimate clubs, it’s not respect or fear that
has kept your people from being allowed to patch over to other
clubs. Any club with any common sense knows better than to trust
one of you as far as we can see you. If you lazy bastards can’t
steal it, you sell poison to kids, and threaten until you get what
you want. Not a man in your group actually works for a living, and
your women are pregnant all the fuckin’ time providing you all with
welfare checks and food stamps.

“Your fuckin’ litter mate was beating on a
boy who was working in his family business to earn his way through
college when I stopped him. That brain dead fuck that was with him
was real brave with a pig sticker in his hand.” He drank another
swallow, attempting to keep his temper in check. “I don’t
understand your way of life, and I don’t want to. I’ve earned every
fucking thing I own, and so has every man in the Breed.”

The mad inside John was too much for him to
handle, so he stood and grabbed the chair he’d been sitting in, and
hurled it with every bit of strength in his arm. The chair
splintered on the wall, breaking into pieces. The big man threw the
can in his hand behind it for emphasis, and began to pace.

“You’ll be taken care of while you’re our
guest, I’ll have you moved across the hall, but you will be with us
until I either find that cocksucking coward, or your daddy turns
him over to me.”

John stepped close enough for Donnie to
attempt to slug him, but Donnie wasn’t taking that bait. The man
put his finger in his face.

“You’re gonna call your daddy and tell him
for me that I don’t plan on killing the fucker in his sleep, he’ll
get a fair fight, and if he can walk away when it’s over, he’ll be
free to go. If he keeps hiding, I won’t be too picky where he is or
who he’s with, as long as he isn’t moving by the time I’m done. You
get me, boy?”

Donnie nodded his head, and decided to try
reasoning with the crazy fucker. “I was on my way to get Candle
when your whore waylaid me. Pappy D wanted to talk to him about the
situation. I think he was planning to cut him loose from the Swamp
Kings. He’s been more trouble than he’s worth for a while now, so
don’t think your issue is the only one. If you wait a few days,
maybe a week, he’s fair game for you.”

John wondered if the man actually believed a
slug like Candle would just peacefully walk away from his hideaway
without doing damage. What the fuck, why should he bother trying to
explain a damn thing to this kid, no matter the boy had to be close
to thirty, he wasn’t a man yet, maybe that’s why those ignorant
fucks acted like they did. None of them grew up.

He pulled his cell phone out and asked for
Pappy D’s direct number.

“Is this Pappy D? Who am I, well I’m the man
who has your boy here, and you get him back once I get what I
want.” The old man was shouting endearments at him and he smiled.
“If you keep that kinda shit up, I won’t let him talk to you.
Really? Name the place, I’ll be there, you want to think you’re man
enough to cash that check your mouth’s writing, I’ll be happy to
oblige. Now that you have that out of your system, I’m gonna show
you what a reasonable man I can be.”

He handed the phone to Donnie and waited for
the younger man to finish staring at him while he talked to his
father.

Donnie ended the call when he finally said,
“Yeah, me too, Pappy,” and handed the phone back to John. “I guess
you gotta do what you gotta do, man, I can’t help you and you know
it.”

John nodded and walked out of the room.

Donnie was asleep in the chair when Skids and
another man that he didn’t recognize came in and led him into a
different room. It was small, and had a toilet in the corner, a
sleeping mat was on the floor, and a bare light bulb hung overhead.
His leg irons were exchanged for a single ankle restraint, but the
cuffs on his wrists remained.

Stevie was learning how to deal with having
Lonnie around, and she could see why his wife had him on a short
leash too. He was pretty much clueless about women stalking him
through the grocery store, and the chickie babes in the bar almost
begging him to come with them to a private party, even when one
drunk on her ass woman stuck her hand down in his pocket with her
address and phone number on a folded napkin.

“You don’t have to look at them like that,
Stevie, I’m glad that my looks can make them happy. My wife says
I’m like a picture in the museum, it belongs to someone else, so
please admire, but don’t touch. Her name is Sharon, I love her, and
she’ll never have cause to worry about my loyalty. She knows how
some women react when I’m around. When we first met, I was a real
horn dog. I thought she wasn’t pretty enough to be my woman.” He
shook his head with a tiny smile on his perfect lips, and continued
with his story.