Vulnerable (Barons of Sodom) (7 page)

Officer Gil Cannon clicked the door of his blue Cadillac
shut. The ring of metal on metal seemed the only sound for miles in the hot
country air. Flicking a pair of RayBan aviators across the elegant bridge of
his nose, the policeman took quick survey of his face in the side mirror.
Dapper,
as fucking usual,
he murmured to the forest.

Officer Cannon made quick work of the half-mile of paved
road leading up to the main house of the Barons of Sodom, and from there he
took stock of the property: the big house, the campfire meeting ground, a
garage with rooms above it, a wellspring...all lay exactly as his commanding
officers had said. Cannon then reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a
crushed pack of menthols. He drew one wimpy cigarette from the frayed end of
the box and lit it with a pack of matches. He squinted, already uncomfortable,
up into the opaque windows of the fortress. His suit was a plainclothesmen’s'
beige linen, and he'd already begun to sweat through it in this intense heat.

The officer heard the sounds of a scuffle coming from a room
above the garage, followed by the loud slam of a door. A real pork chop of a
rider with a walrus moustache and handfuls of fat spooling from the restrictive
band of his leather pants came clomping out into the sunshine. The biker
shielded his eyes from the sun and then peered at the stranger, planting his
feet in the dry earth. “Who the FUCK are you?” he called out.

Cannon said nothing, merely pulled his badge from the same
crumpled inner pocket where his cigarettes rested. He was the kind of man who
had to shave twice a day, and the sweat pooling already by the tips of his
earlobes was tickling down over the stubble on his cheeks.
How does that fat
piece of shit stay cool in leather,
he thought to himself. But at the wide
rider, he merely smiled. He smiled a smile that showed all of his perfect,
shiny white teeth.

Officer Cannon had been told all his life that he bore more
than a passing resemblance to a certain beloved movie star, and that comparison
alone had been sufficient for paving his charmed way through the social spheres
of Waco, Texas. Cannon was also a tall man—tall enough to be a moderately successful
defensive basketball player with an inexplicably poor jump shot—and that height
also lent him the air of an intimidating person. He had big, muscular arms from
spending hours at the shooting range. His brown hair was impressively thick,
and as it grew as fast as his beard, often falling into his eyes. He was nearly
barrel-chested (like his movie star doppelganger, who was best-known for
playing a Roman gladiator in an epic movie many years earlier), indicating
strength, but his pearly whites could disarm most women. In short, he wasn't accustomed
to being fucked with. It just didn't happen that often.

“Pfff. Like I give two shits about the law,” drawled the
biker. “This is private property, Krupke. Whyn't you mosey back to your
government teat.”

Turning on his pudgy legs, the biker started to lurch back
up the hill toward the source of the argument that had apparently driven him
outside. But before he'd taken a third step, the dry earth around his feet was
crackling with gunshots.

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!” called Spivey, dancing on his toes
to avoid the spurts of rubble and bullet. The officer was firing a full load
into the earth, just like one of those hard-ass Western big shots who tell
their victims to “dance” before they shoot them full of holes. Being unathletic,
the biker couldn't meet the challenge—he ducked and rolled over the earth away
from the spray, winding up in a sweaty, heaving ball at the base of the
wellspring. Panting, he glowered up at Officer Cannon with fresh eyes.

“So the Law, huh?”

Cannon nodded.

“What do you want? Money? Drugs? Cause if you want a Rider
to roll over on a deal, you're gonna need a bigger gun.”

“They brought a girl here yesterday. I need to see her.”

“Ha. Shoulda figured.”

Cannon reloaded his gun and pointed it lazily at Spivey's
shaking head. “Where is she?”

“She's around here somewhere.”

Cannon cocked the pistol.

“Jesus, officer. Try the garage. And if she's not there,
she's probably breaking in the bed in the big house.”

Though Cannon was already trotting in the direction of the
garage, Spivey called to his back: “Beautiful tits! The one with straight hair!
Can't miss her!” Then he fully collapsed against the spring.

Cannon rapped twice on the wall outside the garage before he
sauntered inside. A short, squat woman with a curly head of hair was rummaging
noisily through a box of ball bearings. Not likely his target. Then he saw her:
a slender, slightly gawky young girl perched on an abandoned bucket seat,
studying a heavy book by the light from the cracked skylight. Closer inspection
revealed that the book was a user's manual:
Basic Motorcycle Repair
.

“Excuse me,” Cannon said, quietly at first. Neither woman
looked up, so he cleared his throat for emphasis: “I'm looking for Bridie
Calyer,” he said. The girl's eyes flicked up, startled. He saw her searching
his face for some sign of recognition. It was true, what the asshole outside
had said. She did have a great rack.

“And who the hell are you?” called the short one, her whole
carriage a picture of irritation. She looked like a woman who'd already been
trifled with a few times that day. Cannon couldn't help but respect a woman
like this: she reminded him of the other ladies on the force. Women who'd been
told all their lives they'd be lucky to carve out a woman's space in a man's
world, and in response said:
fuck you.

“Bridie Calyer,” Cannon repeated. “And I know that's who you
are, little lady. I'm Officer Gil Cannon, from the East Side precinct. I've
been assigned to be your liaison with the Sheriff's office. Gonna keep an eye
on you while you're visiting these...outlaws.”

The short one narrowed her eyes and started to wipe her
greasy hands on a red kerchief in likely echo of some intimidating gesture
she'd seen in a movie. Cannon couldn't help but notice that she, too, had an
impressive set of tits. A nice figure all around, really. It'd been too long
since he...

“What are you talking about? A man from the precinct dropped
me off just the other day. I wasn't told I'd be getting any kind of watchman.”

“
Liaison
.”

“
Whatever.
”

“All I know is they sent me. I'll be here every day, and you
can check in with me if anyone's bothering you. I'll be watching you to make
sure they don't.” Cannon then strode into the garage and began to pick up
pieces of bric-a-brac as he found them, looking entirely at ease. There was
something decidedly unofficial about the way the man moved—his actions were too
studied. Like a con artist, Bridie thought.

“Who's garage is this?” he asked, his voice languid.

“I'm Athena Sark. I look after all the bikes here.”

Cannon extended a hand to Athena, but she kept her fist
balled firmly in the red kerchief. He recoiled at the slight, before sliding
his aviators up the bridge of his nose and onto his head. Then he paused where
he stood and turned his gaze to Bridie.

“Look, babe. I don't give a damn where you go or what you
do. All I know is I'm a police officer, I'm on assignment, and you're a hot little
piece of ass who may or may not have witnessed the biggest murder in this
county in the past nine years. You can 'whatever' till the cows come home, but if
I were you I wouldn't be fool enough to turn away anyone offering protection
right now.” Without waiting for a reply from either woman, Cannon spit into the
cool dark of the garage and turned on his heel. The women listened to his
loafers crunch away in the dust.

After a long pause, Bridie turned to Athena. “You think he
was telling the truth? Or full of it?”

“Don't trust the law, kid.”

Bridie bit her lip. “But if it is true. That I saw a crime.
I...I need to trust the law eventually, don't I?”

“In my experience, they never seem to have your best
interests at heart.” Athena went back to rummaging, casting the handkerchief
aside as quickly as she'd taken it up. Both women worked in silence for a few
minutes, Athena making huffy noises of irritation as she began to scrape the
bottom of her box. Finally, she spoke again.

“Bridie, I know you're scared. Whatever has happened, I'd
be, too. But remember: as shitty as all these Barons seem to be, they're all
hard as nails because they've been through hell. You go through hell and keep
going, you get hard like that. And the only upside to pain is that it can make
you so strong you learn to protect yourself, you learn to protect the people
you love, and you stop being afraid of
any-fucking-thing
.” She clanked
the lid of the toolbox shut with excessive force. “You just stick with me. I'll
show you.”

Far earlier than it seemed it should have, a red, rosy
sunset began to fill the camp. The morning birds traded places with the scuttling
rodents of evening, and listless Barons began to light little fires around the
camp—both as signposts for travelers and to ward off the infectious mosquitoes.

Most of the men, Bridie had discovered, spent their days shifting
from room to room in the camp, or finding excuses to come by the garage and
bother Athena. It seemed that the Barons of Sodom were more
lost
than
any collection of bikers she'd heard about before. In the hours since morning
alone, the young apprentice had learned all the biker's nicknames, associated
with their various engines, each in various states of disuse-related disrepair.
Most members of the MC preferred a Honda ride, she'd learned. Yet some of the
men had souped up bikes with trendy paint jobs, while others rode older,
verging-on-vintage makes. One especially lovely blue and white racer, made in
1970, hung from a ceiling rack in the Sark space. When asked about its origin,
Athena—for once—shut her mouth tight. “That one's for God. We don't fuck with
it.”

Some of the Barons had given her shit—Spivey, Yak, a
doughy-faced kid called Bo Diddly—but largely it seemed that God's word had
held fast. Athena was pleased—she was certain that, had she not intervened,
Bridie would already have been conscripted into the concubines by now. She was
also surprised to discover how handy a mechanic Bridie was. The young girl had
a natural eye for overseas engineering.

And no sooner had the head mechanic pronounced the day's
work done than a rumor began around camp: there was to be another party
tonight, this time at a podunk bar off the highway. God had apparently done
some good turn in the past for the bartender at Dixie's, and the manager was
paying it forward now by hosting a brouhaha.

“What do you say, kid? Feel like going to a biker party?”
Athena asked her ward as they trotted towards the meeting space for dinner.
Unexpectedly, Bridie set her chin. “Yes,” she answered, her voice clear.

As they munched over the grim selection of hotdogs and
hamburgers that Z had prepared for the club, Athena took stock of her fellows:
Tucker had disappeared at some point in the afternoon, likely on another amble
around the plains. God, as was his usual tack, hadn't left his property for
most of the day. The mysterious Officer Cannon was nowhere to be seen, but his
crisp-looking Caddy was still at the bottom of the hill.

“It's weird around here today. I'm thinking a bit of
bacchanalia would do you good, babe,” Athena agreed, forcing down a bite of
rubbery hot dog. “Come on. Let's get you dressed.”

Though Athena's quarters were largely bleak, Bridie was
surprised to discover that the older woman had a veritable treasure trove of
dresses and jewelry—all of them colorful and somewhat exotic. She kept these
goodies stuffed into a trunk at the foot of her sour-looking cot.

“You ever wear any of this stuff, A?” Bridie asked, as she
drew a length of plum-colored silk from the drawer.

“Not much use for girly dresses in an oil-spattered garage,”
Athena said. Then, for what felt like the first time in their whole, slow day
together, the other woman laughed. Without knowing quite what was funny, Bridie
joined in.

Together, they played an improbable game of dress-up under
the harsh industrial light. Athena attempted both an electric blue pantsuit
with a deep V-neck and a tiny floral tube top with a flamenco skirt—both of
which revealed the constellations of tattoos striping the mechanic's back and
arms. Bridie, eager to play, settled on a black halter dress made of light
linen, with a ring of embroidered stars dancing around the hem. When she
wandered out from behind the thin curtain separating the bedroom from the rest
of the garage, Athena drew a breath.

“What is it? Too much?”

“Well, for one thing, you're foxy as hell,” her new friend whispered.
“But for another—just please be careful around the boys tonight. They're going
to want you, Bridie. And I don't know if you've ever been the apple of anyone's
eyes before, but just remember, those men are men, and they don't play around.”

Bridie plucked a light gray cardigan from the top of the
treasure chest and slid its fabric over her shoulders. She took a long look at
herself in the mirror, visibly pleased with the result. Then she turned to her
caretaker. “I'm just as hard as they are, Athena.”