Biker (3 page)

Heart going
boom boom boom
Pratt held his right hand up like a traffic cop. “Stop!” he commanded.

The Mastodon stopped, an expression of utter disbelief on his concave face.

“I'm a private investigator. All I want are these two dogs. Let me have them and I'm out of here.”

How was he going to get them out of there? Bungee them to the back of his bike?

“You ain't a cop?” The Mastodon was incredulous.

“I'm a private investigator. All I want are the dogs.”

“I DON'T THINK SO MOTHERFUCKER.” The Mastodon advanced, eyes blazing with incendiary rage and joy.

“Kick his
ass
, Barnett!” someone called.

“Beat
down
!”

Cell phone cameras appeared.

Mumbling obscenities Barnett came at Pratt like a linebacker.

Bending like a sprinter Pratt ran straight at the big man, swerving and ducking at the last minute as he whacked Barnett's left knee with the ax handle with the satisfying smack of Barry Bonds knocking one out of the park. Barnett sank like the Twin Towers. Two Mastodons calved like icebergs from the crowd, one swinging a chain, the other gripping a Bowie knife the size of Rhode Island. Pratt stepped backwards onto Barnett's head, grinding it into the dirt.

Thank you, God, they don't have guns
.

That could change in an instant. Pratt had heard a gun. He'd thought about bringing one. He wished he had one. The Mastodons split, the one on Pratt's right grinning as he swung the chain in a figure eight. They planned to catch Pratt between them. Pratt danced backward to the van, flung the door open and grabbed a two-pound steel wrench. The chain guy rushed and lashed out, bringing the heavy chain down in a vertical arc meant to bash Pratt's skull. Pratt juked to the right and threw the wrench ass over teakettle with as much spin as his thick wrist could deliver.

The chain guy's mouth went oval an instant before the wrench struck him in the middle of his forehead with the jawed end. The chain guy staggered back two steps and sat heavily on his ass.

“
Uf
-da!” someone said. “That's gotta smart.”

“Yo Barnett.”

Barnett sat up clutching his knee. “Shit!” he spat. “What's the matter with you assholes? Fuck him up!”

The other Mastodon danced forward, knife moving in a tight little pattern. The freak was between Pratt and the van so Pratt did something he'd seen in a
Punisher
comic book. He scooped up a handful of pea gravel and hurled it in the knife man's face. The dude instinctively threw up his hands. Pratt rushed in with a kick to the nuts that lifted the hapless Mastodon off his feet. He fell to the ground howling and curled up like a shrimp.

“
Hay
-zeus,” someone reverently intoned.

An anaconda-like arm snaked around Pratt's neck. He grabbed hold of the elbow with both hands to work a little breathing room but by then a couple more Mastodons had moved in to deliver kidney-rupturing body blows. Pratt kicked up and caught someone in the jaw.

An instant later he was driven to the ground by the sheer force of blows. Now it was his turn to curl like a shrimp as bikers went to work with steel-toed boots. Pratt couldn't see daylight. He tried to shield his head and gut as blows rained down like a meteor shower. Bone-deep pain churned through his ribs. Pratt had a very high pain threshold. He was near red line. A wooden bat bounced off his ribs with soul-stopping force and he began to wonder if he was going to make it out of there alive. A slick nausea ballooned from his broken nose and worked its way to his stomach.

All for two dogs.

The smack-in-the-face report of a shotgun instantly sucked the air out of the yard. Heads swiveled. “Back away from him. Get back or I'll blow your fuckin' heads off,” a woman said. Pratt incongruously registered her sexy contralto and wondered if her looks matched her voice. Gradually, grudgingly, the bikers backed off. One last kick to the kidney from Taco who held the bat.

I'll be pissing blood for a week
, Pratt thought.

Slowly, painfully, he got to his feet. Cracked rib. Jolts of pain radiated through his thorax like starving cats released form a cage. Loose jaw and lumps and abrasions up and down both sides. He turned toward the shooter. She stood atop the three stone steps leading to the farmhouse holding a pump-action Remington in parade position. His first impression: That body. Latino voluptuous.
Huh! Good God!

“He's a fuckin'
cop
, Cass!” Barnett said, hanging onto a brother.

“I'm a private investigator,” Pratt said. “All I want is the dogs.”

A rumble of discontent rolled through the barnyard. The night was young. There were dogs which hadn't fought. Some bitched about the interruption. Others bitched that the fucking Skulls had brought an outsider.

“Hey,” Cass said, setting the shotgun on its butt. “Hey! You know what? Y'all been here all day, fightin' your dogs, pissin' in my yard and suckin' down my hard cider. It's one thirty in the morning. Why don't y'all get out of here? That's it! Show's over! Nice seeing y'all!”

“You're getting' paid,” someone rumbled.

“Yeah, until I say when. Well it's that time of night, gentlemen! Pack up your pit bulls and go home.”

More grumbling. Some of the boys were looking at the woman with ill-concealed lust, figuring their odds against the shotgun. Might be worth it A tawny-haired beauty of five six in ass-hugging jeans and Luchese boots wearing a flannel shirt tied off across her taut belly. Wide mouth and fearless green eyes. A scar along her chin line only made her more interesting. While bikers bitched Pratt edged his way out of the crowd toward the steps leading to the farmhouse.

Damn
, he wished he'd brought a gun.

Too late for that. She'd likely saved his life. He had to stand by her. He turned at the base of the steps and faced the yard. Most of the bikers had gone back to their original clusters and with much grumbling were loading dogs into pick-ups.

“You know bitch, we might not come back,” someone said.

Cass half-lifted the scatter gun. “I reckon I can live with that heartbreak.”

“Yo, bitch,” said an Aztec warrior. “Maybe we come back when you ain't expecting. You ever think of that?”

Cass put the scatter gun on target. “Bring it on, Salazar.”

The Aztec shrugged and walked to his hardtail.

Motorcycles cleared their throats, a mechanical cacophony that rose and rose until the ground shook and every bird had fled. They heard it in Chicago. One by one the bikes roared out of the yard up the dirt road, leaving a cloud of dust that hung in the air like the aftermath of some disaster. One by one the pick-ups followed until the last set of taillights disappeared in the cloud of dust and the last straight pipe coughed a mile up the road.

Pratt turned and looked at the woman.

“Thanks.”

“Can you walk? Come on up and have some coffee.”

CHAPTER 5

Pratt followed the woman up the stone path, up three wood steps and into the old farmhouse. She walked with an unself-conscious metronomic sexiness. Stoked by exhaustion, adrenaline and post-coke jitters, Pratt was glad he'd worn a cup. He had a hard-on like a Saturn booster. A stitch in his side screaming with every step couldn't put a dent in it.

Every time he saw a woman he'd like to fuck he got a hollow, hammering sensation in his chest. Possibility and failure. This one had an ass like a ripe peach. Pratt knew guys who'd let the genie out of the bottle. He was afraid what his own genie might do, if he ever let it loose. He said a silent prayer.

He didn't care that the babe was hosting dogfights. He didn't care if she was a murderer. He just wanted to fuck her.

The woman opened the screen door and Pratt followed. It slammed shut behind him. She walked past a staircase through a living room outfitted in fifties shag into a lit kitchen with a well-grooved hardwood floor. The round kitchen table was made of oak with four oak chairs. There was a pot of coffee on the stove.

She set the shotgun down in the corner, turned and offered her hand. “Cass Rubio.”

She had a firm, warm grip. She smelled of jasmine and a touch of something tart. “Josh Pratt. This your farm?”

“I'm a renter. Have a seat. Would you like some day-old doughnuts?”

“Yeah sure, why not.”

Cass set a white bakery box on the table. “You sit while I get the first-aid kit. You looked dinged-up pretty good.”

“I think I got a cracked rib.”

“Poor baby.” Cass entered a bath off the kitchen and returned with a white metal box marked with a red cross. She set it on the table and opened it. She used a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol to mop up the cuts and abrasions on his face. She applied a jumbo Band Aid that covered half his forehead. Her fingers were cool to the touch and each time she touched him she sent a jolt of electricity straight to his groin. He shifted and adjusted to hide his erection. Of course it was all fantasy. A genuine looker like this wouldn't tumble for a grimy ex-con.

“Take off your shirt.”

Pratt peeled off the vest and shirt. She stared at the dragon tattoo winding around his torso. “You'd make a nice mural for a Chinese restaurant.” She touched the crude cross on his bicep. “This doesn't fit.”

“The price was right.”

She touched his ribs and he winced. “You could play the xylophone on these. This must be the rib, huh?”

She poked again and he flinched, gasping. Her scent was pure sex, something she got at Walmart named after a celebrity.

“I don't have enough bandage to do it right so I'm going to have to use duct tape.”

Pratt nodded. Cass opened a kitchen drawer and took out a spool of gray tape. She wrapped it around his ribs and over the shoulder so that he felt he was encased in high-flex body armor.

“How's that?” she asked when she'd finished.

Pratt shifted. “Great. I can barely move.”

“You should see a doctor. I only had one year's nurse's training.”

She brought him a mug of coffee and plunked whole milk in a carton on the table. They sipped coffee and ate day-old doughnuts.

“Are you really a private detective?”

“Yes. My neighbor hired me to find his schnauzers. I got lucky because I know a little bit about cycle gangs.”

“You got lucky all right.”

Pratt grinned. “You saved my life.”

“Doubt it. They're nasty but they're not killers.”

They sipped coffee in silence.

“Do you find people?”

“Sometimes.”

“Reason I ask, I have a friend, a very close friend who's Crohn's. Sixteen years ago she gave birth to a boy. When the boy was two his father stole him and she hasn't seen him since. Is that the kind of thing you do?”

“Yeah. I'll give you my card, she can call me.” He pulled one of Bloom's business cards from his wallet and wrote his phone number and email address on the back.

Cass looked at the card, shrugged, put it on the table.

“I want you to meet her. We're kinda short on time here because she's married to this big-shot builder who has no idea of her past. He's on a business trip right now but he'll be back Monday. I wonder if it would be possible for you to meet with her this weekend. Money is not a problem.”

Pratt shrugged and winced. “I guess. I've got to get those dogs back. I'm on a motorcycle.”

“I've got a Ram. I'll help you return the dogs if you'll meet with my friend.”

“Does she know you're doing this?”

“Yes she does. She asked me to find someone. Pure luck you showed up here tonight.” She gazed at him frankly with those deep green eyes. Pratt went a little vertigo. He remembered the dog pissing itself in terror.

“Mind if I ask you a question?” he said.

“Shoot.”

“You seem like a nice lady. How come you're allowing dogfights in your barn? You know who those people are?”

Cass exposed Chiclet teeth. “I know those people better than you think. I needed the money. I'm through now. It's over. Seeing what happened tonight I've made up my mind.”

“What do you do when you're not running dogfights?”

She leaned back and crossed her legs. The bottom of a rose tattoo extended beneath the cuff of her jean. “I sell fireworks.”

“Really?”

“You know. Black Cats, Roman Candles, Whistling Buzz Bombs. I run a string of five stands from here to South Dakota beginning in mid-June. You see that big fireworks sign out by the interstate just north of Janesville? That's mine. I used to work as a magician's assistant but he died in one of his escapes.”

“So you got stands out now.”

“Yup. I make my rounds on Monday.”

There was a hint of a smile at the edge of her mouth. Was she jerking him around? He had no way of telling. He was clueless about women. His girlfriends had all been either drug addicts or insane. Cass gave off good vibrations but she was setting off warning bells too. Dogfights were a problem.

Pratt loved dogs. Always had. He'd participated in the Puppies Behind Bars program, raising service dogs for disabled veterans. Ever since his old man had brought home that squirming mutt when he was ten years old. Of course a couple years later ol' Duane got mean drunk one night and drove Barkley across town and dumped him in a strange neighborhood. A couple years later he did the same thing to Pratt.

“You worked for a magician? Where was that?”

“Little carnival called Deming and Gold's International Cavalcade of Stars, out of Oakton, Florida. They went bankrupt a while back. Gave the elephant to the Milwaukee Zoo.”

“Where you from, Cass?”

“What are you, investigating?”

“I can't place the accent. You're not from around here.”

“I was born in Florida, lived all over the south. What about you? I don't see a wedding ring.”