Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle (42 page)

“Can we talk in front of him?” Ned pointed at the old man.

Chuck laughed. “Oh yeah, his English is not too good and I own him anyway.” Bob laughed too. The old guy looked up then went back to his reading.

Bob spoke first. “They like you, man. They want you to work for them.”

“I told you, it's not gonna happen.”

“I forgot, you love the mailroom too much.”

“No, there was a cop there; he arrested me, he warned me, he knows my face.”

“A city cop? You are worried about this?” Chuck muttered something in Serbian to Bob. They both laughed. “I heard bikers were pussies, but now I know.” They laughed again. “A city cop we can take care of. It's not like it's the FBI.”

Ned hoped they didn't see the minute flinch he succumbed to when they mentioned the FBI. “Wait, why am I so important that they'd hit a cop for me?”

“Don't worry, they won't hurt your boyfriend,” Bob laughed. “But they do want you.”

“Well, the real problem for me isn't the cop, it's the location. Detroit is crawling with bikers.”

“Suppose the business they wanted you to get involved with is not in Detroit or even Midwest?”

Ned was intrigued. “What is it?”

“That will become clear in time.”

“Okay, so why me?”

“That should be obvious; you do not look like a criminal, you look like young businessman—at least if we clean you up. You can go places, do things without arousing suspicion. It's almost like police can't see you, you are invisible to them.”

“But why me? Why not some other white guy?”

“Because you
are
a criminal, you have tasted the life and want some more . . . or maybe you want forty more years in the mailroom.”

Ned contemplated for a moment. “Okay, there are complications . . .”

“There always are,” said Chuck, who was appeared to be in charge of the pair. “What do you want?”

“I'll need a whole pack of ID, good stuff, enough to get past a cop or over the border.”

“Is not a problem. What name?”

“My real name—Jared Macnair.”

The guy beside Ned stank. Not just a little, but a real, hardcore days-and-days-of-sweat-and-urine stink. That didn't bother him as much as the incessant scratching. But he didn't have much choice. Ned couldn't afford his own computer, let alone an internet account, so he used the public computers at the local library at least once a week. He avoided the computers in the children's department, dominated by screaming kids playing online games of the shoot-to-kill variety.

He used his free twenty-minute session to catch up on news of the Sons of Satan trial. His testimony had gone into the record long ago, but it was a complicated set of trials and the sheer number of defendants demanded that the process took a long time. And the savvier defense attorneys did their best to prolong it so that witnesses began to question their own memories or grow more reluctant to testify for other reasons.

Ned knew that his testimony was going to send Bouchard and Mehelnechuk—the leaders of the Sons of Satan—away for a long time. But he was surprised just how many members of the gang were already set free—or about to be—through shrewd plea bargaining or due to missing or incomplete evidence. In fact, most of the gang was out of custody and, he knew, likely to be re-forming even as he was reading about them.

Normally, he just looked at the names and faces and put them in a mental database—more, he convinced himself, for nostalgia than out of fear that the Sons of Satan would attempt to hunt him down and kill him. But then he saw a name that evoked in him an emotion he had not felt about the trial until that moment.

The name was Dario Gagliano. Dario had been the closest thing Ned had to a real friend in the Sons of Satan, but he was also the reason he turned informant. Ned still vividly recalled the altercation in which he unintentionally killed an innocent man, and Dario had helped him get rid of the body. After they were all arrested in a massive police operation, Ned realized that everyone who knew he had killed someone were all either dead or had more to lose by talking than he did. Except for Dario. Ned had run into him—drug-addled and looking like he was about to crack—when the police were interrogating them all. And he panicked. Ned knew that he could plea bargain his way into a short, tolerable prison stay if all they had on him was trafficking and conspiracy, but if Dario had sold him out or even let slip that he'd killed someone, dismembered and hidden the corpse, Ned knew he was looking at twenty years or even more. So he made a quick decision: Turn state's evidence, and sell everyone else out for a get-out-of-jail-free card.

And he was right. Dario did turn informant, no more than a half hour after he did. Even though his life in the witness protection program was pretty shitty, Ned often told himself, it beat twenty in supermax.

At least that's what he told himself, until today. According to
The Springfield Silhouette
, Dario's testimony had been declared inadmissible due to his “advanced psychosis and deteriorating mental capacity brought on by years of heavy stimulant drug use.”

Ned realized that if he had been a good soldier and kept his mouth shut like he had been taught that he'd probably have been out by now.

He remembered what happened when a member of the Sons of Satan returned from jail or prison. There would be a party in his honor, and anything he wanted—booze, drugs, strippers, prostitutes—was taken care of. And if he'd stayed quiet and out of trouble behind bars, there would often be a reward or a promotion for him.

But there would be no party for Ned or Eric or Jared or whatever name he was going by these days. Just another night of boredom, as it had been since they had brought him here.

The FBI hadn't exactly lied to him, but they weren't exactly on the up and up with him either. They did give him a house and a job and twenty thousand in cash like they said they would. But they moved him out of the house when a family of four from Nevada needed it (after all, he was a single man, why did he need that much space?), the job was the shittiest one in the world (but what could he, a high school dropout with nothing but drug sales on his résumé, expect?) and the twenty thousand was quickly eaten up when he had to replace pretty much everything he owned and buy that gift for himself—the Indian. As it stood, he had a dark, cramped apartment, a humiliating minimum-wage job, no friends, no girl and not much hope for a better future.

He called Chuck. “Yeah man, I'm ready to talk with your buddy.”

“It's already done.”

“What do you mean?”

“We need to talk in person,” Chuck said. “Go to the sandwich place in Hilltop.”

Just as he was getting out of the Kia in front of the restaurant, Ned heard the low, loud rumble of a customized Harley-Davidson. Reflexively, he jumped back into the car, and ducked down. Once it was clear the Harley had gone by, he sat up and looked around. There was a round-faced kid—maybe eight years old—looking at him through the passenger window. At first the kid looked mystified, and then he started to laugh before running away.

Ned couldn't laugh at himself as he tried to regain his dignity. The nearest Son of Satan was a thousand miles away; that Harley was probably some rich old dude trying to look cool. Though why that kind of guy would be driving down the worst block in the poorest neighborhood of town raised a little doubt in Ned's mind.

The restaurant was doing a comparatively brisk business. Chuck and Bob were in the back at a table. They looked different than they did at work. Instead of minor clues as to their wealth, like expensive watches, they were in full gangster wear with expensive shell suits and loads of gold. After sitting down and exchanging greetings, Ned asked why they had to meet in a public place, especially this one.

“We have nothing to say that is at all con-tro-ver-sial,” Bob said. Ned could tell Bob enjoyed using the word “controversial.”

“So what are we here to talk about?”

Chuck yelled something at shop's owner, who nodded with resignation. “Our mutual friend in the Midwest,” he said. “He thinks he likes you, may have some part-time work for you.”

“What kind of work?”

“Nothing much, shipping and receiving, that sort of thing, no problem for you.”

“Where would it be?”

“Wherever you want—here in Wilmington, maybe—but with a few trips to nearby places like New Jersey and maybe New York City.”

“Sounds okay.”

“Okay? It's a great opportunity!”

Ned tried hard to look unimpressed. “Maybe it is, but I need to know more.”

“Come into the back with me.”

As they got up and went behind the counter, Ned noticed Chuck was carrying a yellow envelope. He led Ned into a small room full of boxes and cleaning supplies. “Grigori has given you two gifts. Here, open this.”

Ned opened the envelope. Inside were a passport and a Minnesota driver's license with his likeness on them. They were made out in the name of “Jared Macnair.”

Ned looked up at Chuck who was obviously proud. “Remember I took your pictures for security cards at work? I sent them to Grigori who has good friend in passport department,” he said excitedly. And another in DMV in Minnesota.” He laughed a little at Ned's reaction. “And look, Macnair is spelled right, not McNair like many others,” he was practically gushing now. “And has correct birthdate and even hometown of Gila Bend, Arizona.”

Realizing it could be a test, Ned corrected Chuck's pronunciation from “GUY-lah” to “HEE-lah.”

Chuck laughed. “English is the most strange language,” he said. “Do you want your other gift?”

“Isn't this it?”

Chuck smiled broadly. “Do you remember the cop who was bothering you?”

“Yeah, Halliday?” Ned replied. “They didn't . . . ”

“No, no, no, no harm will come to your boyfriend,” Chuck laughed. “No, but he did come across some very bad luck.”

“What happened?” Ned felt his throat dry up.

Chuck laughed again, but this time with less joy. “It seems a young boy, a young Russian boy, has accused the detective of—how do you say it?—molesting him,” he said. “Sad, very sad.”

“What? Really?”

“Well, nobody can say what happened for sure. But the investigation will, of course, take a long time, and your friend naturally will be suspended—maybe also for a long time.”

Ned paused. “I don't know what to say.”

“Say thank you.”

“Uh—thank you, and thank Grigori.”

“He is always good to his employees,” said Chuck. Then he sighed and said, “There is one little, tiny thing, though.”

Ned felt eerily cold. “What's that?”

Chuck laughed, then grinned. “Nothing, nothing.” He paused, then shrugged. “All you have to do is prove you are who and what you say you are—simple.”

Ned hoped that Chuck couldn't hear the terror in his voice. “H-how would I do that?”

“Is nothing, really,” Chuck's smile had left his face. “You know the Lawbreakers?”

“Yeah.”

“They have small chapter in Ocean Beach,” Chuck said. “They—and you—have a job to do.”

“Lawbreakers? But I'm . . .”

“You're what?”

“Well, I used to be a Sons of Satan full-patch . . .”

“And now you are man who stole from Sons of Satan, got away with it, lived and now works for Grigori, most powerful man in all Midwest.”

“If he is so powerful, why does he need me?”

Chuck's face hardened. “He doesn't
need
you. Don't question him. This is just part of your job. You want him to trust you, right? Do what is asked of you.”

“Right, but I'm supposed to collaborate with the Lawbreakers? You want me to just walk in blindly to some situation?”

Chuck laughed. “You Americans, always with the worry, worry, worry. No, Grigori would never ask you to do something so stupid. The Ocean Beach Lawbreakers have a bar, you go there and they will welcome you. Remember, you fucked over the Sons of Satan, that makes you a hero in their eyes—and you can bring Semyon, he will help.”

Ned knew he didn't have long to decide, and he knew the safest way out of the room he was in would be to agree to do what they asked. If he later decided he couldn't do it, he could always tell Dave and see if the FBI could move him again. But then, of course, he'd have two sets of criminals who'd want to kill him and probably an even worse job. At least in Delaware he wasn't that far from the beach. Then he remembered that Semyon was the giggler and he let out a little laugh.