Vulnerable (Barons of Sodom) (4 page)

As the meeting dispersed, Tuck wound his way towards God,
his jaw set.

“Hey. Hey!” Tuck called to his already retreating leader.
“What's with the girl? You really think it's such a great prank, telling a
bunch of clubrats to keep their paws off a slice of jailbait like that?” From
the corner of his eye, Tuck noted Yak moving in on Baby. “You know it's
supposed to be a bunch of hens for one rooster—not the other way around.”

“I'm just doing an old friend a favor, lieutenant. Baby
won't be around for long.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?”

“Means what it means what it means. Since when do you
question orders?” For the first time, Tuck noted that his fearless leader
looked tired—the lines around his eyes were rimmed with sleep.

“I just worry, sir. About the moral caliber of...”

“Since when do you care about
moral fucking caliber
?”

“I just thought—”

“BOY.” Now, the leader spoke loud enough for all the other
bikers to hear. His tone seemed to carry across the Earth. “You listen to me,
now. I say the club is watching a girl, the club is watching a girl. I promised
no more and no less than that. You got some kind of problem with a directive,
you may take it up with my gun. Are we clear?” His eyes blazed. As aggressive
as the old coot could be, Tuck was unused to being on the receiving end of this
kind of fury—such diatribes were usually reserved for fucks ups, like Yak and
Spy. But lieutenant or no, here he was being treated like some second-rate
sidekick. Just like that idiot kid he'd tried so hard to leave behind on
Chartres Street.

“Yes, sir,” Tuck grumbled, in an attempt to save what little
face remained. The man upstairs began his slow lope towards the main house.

Because the moon was full and the town was dry, the bikers
now set to their typical evening bacchanalia. Someone—Needles, a grizzled older
man notorious for his game in chicken—bent low in the middle of the meeting
place now, as he set about the task of starting a fire. Other bikers lit
cigarettes, a chorus of orange tips painting the night. Someone replaced the
garage's mellow Motown with
Appetite for Destruction
, and Tuck
immediately heard Athena's railing in protest. Looked like it would be a
typical lost weekend for the Barons of Sodom.

Only Baby would be there. Tuck went looking for her, but he didn't
see the new meat. So the chief had bestowed his blessing... was she really the
new housecat? It had been such a dire, sweet longing, seeing her standing there
with that blindfold ripped off her face...his jeans stirred again. Had it just
been too long a dry spell in Texas? Why was he reacting this way to some little
tart?

Maybe moral fucking caliber was ridiculous; they were bikers
after all, not nannies. The man upstairs had practically issued a mandate: fuck
her. Fuck that sweet little baby. Make her moan. And Tuck, he did what he was
told, didn't he?

BRIDIE:
We drove for hours. Miles. I couldn't keep
track. I tried, at first, to recall the familiar potholes in the roads I knew
around Waco, but I got dizzy so fast. They had me blindfolded. Sergeant Wicker
was gone, all the other detectives were gone, there were no voices. Just the
crackly car talk on the AM radio, and presumably a driver.

Behind the blindfold, I started seeing things. I saw aunt
Caroline in the kitchen again, her hair in its long braids—I saw her sitting on
our couch with her watercolors laid out before her, like a map. I did manage to
sneak in some happy memories there, you know? We'd been so lonely, but it was
like we were lonely together.

I thought about Mr. Reginald, also. We'd only met for an
overlapping fraction of a second, but it still seemed to me that I'd lost two
very good friends that day. Have either of you fine boys ever seen pools of
blood? Blood coating every surface you know and understand, blood like rain?
Blood and guts gushing from all the pores of someone you love? Didn't think so.
Huh. I thought about that, too—as much as you can hold on to the blur of things
like that. I was still half-waiting for someone to slap me awake.

The car stuttered to a halt in such a way that I figured we
were moving in circles. The stubby cop who'd pushed me into the car announced
our arrival: “We're here!” he called. I didn't know where. Out the window I saw
only country, a couple of lean-to shacks and the yellowy gloom of a few
mosquito lamps.

When we got outside I slid in the mud; it hadn't occurred to
me that it had rained. I wondered if we were still in Waco. It all looked like
Waco, but then I'd never left my own county before, so I had nothing to compare
the rest of the world to.

“What are we doing here?” I asked the driver. I remember
trying so hard to keep the fear from slipping into my voice.
You're tough,
Bridie,
I thought.
You're strong, and no one can make you foolish.

“This is your protective environment.”

“Why? Why do I need a protective environment?”

The officer stepped toward me.

“You ask another question, I'll slap you into tomorrow,” he
breathed into my face. I could smell cheap whiskey on his breath.

As he poked me, still shackled, towards the lights and
noises of some mysterious party, my fear magnified. The men around me were clad
in leather, and each wore a pair of sunglasses despite the lateness of the
hour. They were thick, strong, heavy men, with tattoos and beards and biceps—utterly
unlike the effete, artistic types my aunt had liked to bring home. Even her
drug dealers, even the mysterious man in the photo, hadn't been like this. I'd
heard rumors about these men. Aunt Caroline told stories of lost souls who
adventured on the plains with a kind of cautious contempt: “You beware of the
clubs, y'hear? Bunch of ne'er'do'well creepos. Remember, Bridie: men only want
one thing. Some of them want it so bad they'll just take it, won't even ask. I
want you to be prepared.” That's what she said to me.

These men called themselves the Barons of Sodom. I was still
in a glaze of shock, but even in the waning light I could distinguish the
colors on their leather jackets—an interlocking Evil Eye and the spokes of a
bicycle wheel, both set in a blaze of kindling fire. No, I thought to myself,
we couldn't possibly still be in Waco. Not the Waco I knew, anyway.

The men hooted and hollered as I approached—not unlike the
cads at the local high school. But these men made me afraid. I set my chin, but
I was quivering. Felt like a long walk into a gladiator pit—something else I
remembered from high school English.

DET. RAMIREZ:
And did you find it strange, even then,
that the police had taken you to a motorcycle club for protection? Did it occur
to you to try to make a phone call, or ask to hear your rights?

BRIDIE:
Oh, officer. You've clearly never been an eighteen-year-old
girl surrounded by a cabal of lusty, dangerous men. Have you ever been so
afraid you couldn't see straight?

DET. RAMIREZ:
Well, sure, ma'am. In the line of duty,
we—

BRIDIE:
There you've got a brotherhood to depend on,
at least. You ever been trapped? All by your lonesome, entirely? I didn't have
a
soul to call.

DET. RAMIREZ:
Well, sure. But—

BRIDIE:
Besides, cap'n, instincts? Those grow in
later. In the eyes of the law I'd been a woman for twenty-four hours. And here
was my first test.

DET. RAMIREZ:
Right.

Should we take a break, Ms. Calyer? You seem overwhelmed.

BRIDIE:
No, no, I'm fine. If someone would just
freshen this up?

(static)

BRIDIE, cont'd:
Story's just about to get good,
anyways. I was just about to meet the Lieutenant.

Athena was raving when he reached the garage. She always
made her bad moods visible—clanging materials together, stomping her heavy work
boots in the dirt. The Barons had a joke that no one ought to let Athena work
on their bike while she was in one of her...strops. A bruised mechanic spelled
dents, chipped paint, a dangling wire, or four.

“What's the rumpus, doll?” Tuck called to her in his best
Jimmy Stewart. The bar she'd used to work at in New Orleans had played Frank
Capra movies on a continuous loop.

“How can you be so blasé about all this?” his best friend
hollered over the twanging thwack of her gear wrench colliding with metal.
“They bring some kid into your 'protection'? What is this, a fraternity? A stag
party?”

“What's got your panties in a twist, exactly? Chief says we
have to protect her, we protect her.”

“I'm not an
idiot,
Tuck. I know what protecting some
hot piece of ass means to all you bastards. She's going to get
raped
here.”

Tuck slowly lit a cigarette as he searched for sating words.
“Look, A. The men here are rough, but they'd never break the code. We only take
the willing kind.”

“And you sound just like God with that fucking mumbo jumbo.
I'm sick of it.” She sat down heavily on a teetering stack of Michelin tires.
“I hear there's some dark business about it, too. Something about the law.”

“But we don't
abide
by the law.”

“Then why was she escorted here in an undercover's Buick?
Why did I see some dick take handcuffs off her when he showed her to the chief?
She was trembling like a leaf! Look, I think this whole thing is out of order.”

“You're being paranoid again, A.” In his mind's eye, Tuck
had already wandered back to the task of seducing Baby. His friend had a point:
Spivey and Yak and the others wouldn't be so genteel in their advances—but then,
they didn't look like he did. He'd resolved to take the chief at his word.
There'd been no reason to doubt his judgment or favors before that night.

“Just wait a moment, before you go diving after the pussy.
Have you seen this?” Athena reached into her red toolkit and pulled out a
newspaper. It was dated from two days prior. The most prominent headline ran:
Trailer
Park Massacre! Mysterious Murders Mount in the Low Country.

“You know I've been
on the road, A. Don't really have time for newspapers.”

“Really, Tuck? You
don't think that maaaaybe this girl you're 'protecting' is related to the
hottest

story this town's seen in years?”

Tuck dragged on his cigarette some more, blowing a neat set
of circles into the air. “Oh, you're talking crazy now. You think we're hiding
a murderer? You think that baby's a
murderer
?”

“I just think,
be careful.
And
ask your leader
questions.
”

“I already tried that! He practically spat in my face!”

“You poor, defenseless body-builder,” Athena said, before
cracking a hint of her unwilling grin. Perhaps her bad mood had broken.

Tuck moved toward his best friend, arms outstretched. “You
poor, defenseless
beauty queen
!” He leaned in to pick her up, wrapping
two tickling hands around her waist.

“Tucker Jay LaRouche, don't you fucking dare!”

“But I love you, Athena! I love you something fierce!” He
began to plant his sloppy kisses up and around her cheeks and neck, eliciting
shrieks of mock distress. The friends struggled together playfully, yelling and
pulling and screaming as they always had. Tuck overturned the stack of tires
with his foot, and once she'd wriggled free, Athena chucked a wrench at his
head.

“Oh, I'm gonna kill you!”

“Not if I kill you first, bitch!” Athena ran towards Tucker
with a tire iron outstretched.

Then suddenly, quietly, from the edge of the garage, came a
noise: a soft gasp. Turning, Tucker saw it was Baby. She peered into the light
of the garage like a moth drawn to flame. She looked horrified at the scene.

But Athena hadn't seen the girl yet. She was waiting for
Tuck to take typical evasive action, but he, distracted, did not. Before she
could retrace her path or fully slow down, she had careened into his buff
chest, knocking him to the ground.

“Why didn't you fucking move, idiot?” Athena screeched—by
way of apology—into her friend's chest. Tuck's head knocked against the wet
cement. The tire iron had gotten him good, between the floating ribs.

“Where is she?” Tucker asked.

“Who?”

“Baby! She's by the door!” Athena launched herself off the
ground with surprising aplomb.

“There's nobody there, Tuck.”

“But I saw her!”

“Not so sure you did.” Then she brushed off her coveralls,
and extended a hand to help him to his feet. “That's enough horsing around. You
just remember what I said. Promise?”

Tuck nodded—though once more, he found it difficult to keep
an eye on his mission. All he could think of now was the look in Baby's
frightened-doe eyes. All he could think of now were Baby's eyes on him.

That night, crawling into the messy room above the garage
that he shared with three other outlaws (Bruiser, Fish and Dom), Tuck
really
couldn't think of anything else. He didn't think about the massacre, or the
chief, or the dull sights of Waco.

He thought only of his would-be woman.