Bones by the Wood (47 page)

But the reasons for those moments, the Mexicans, that cunt at the store, all twisted together in his gut and made him want to tear the life out of things.  He had to swallow that down, contain and maintain, he had to make it useful.  That was the way he worked.  He’d force a lid down on his feelings and then let the rage bleed out slowly.  It was always more effective, and usually had more spectacular results.

Thea had gone into the kitchen.  She was making coffee and food noises. 

Scooby and Shaggy, the two physically largest men amongst his brothers, were teasing Josh about having just been eaten by a zombie.

Dizzy took a moment to think tactics.

Of all his brothers, any of the others were more level-headed, with Fitz topping the charts for his strengths with delicate operations and cruel inventiveness.  But nothing beat Shaggy and Scooby for imposing presence and sheer amount of damage.  He didn’t need their talent for damage, though; he was planning to take care of that.  If anything, he needed them for damage limitation.  It would suck to end up on the Row for Murder One now that he had his family under one roof.

His family, his lady and their boy.  And some tiny little prick with an attitude had laid hands on his lady.  Dizzy had no idea where the short-ass shit had got the sense of entitlement that made him think it was okay to take without permission, to hurt a woman in that way.  No matter, Dizzy planned to teach him some respect.

Dizzy had two little demons, one on each shoulder.  One was Experience, one was Instinct.  They’d killed and feasted on the angel and devil of his conscience many, many years ago.  Dizzy no longer thought of his actions in terms of what was right and what was wrong according to the civilian world.  What he did, the way he lived his life, was all varying shades of hell-worthy grey according to those rules. 

The only thing that mattered in his world was honor, his honor, the honor of his club, the honor of his brothers.  Without his honor, he was nothing.  And what he did in the name of that honor was usually worth fire and brimstone by most people’s standards.  Letting that stunted fuck get away without being taught a lesson would not be honorable.

Instinct’s forked tongue was lisping about all the things he could do to the prick to make him hurt.  Experience, whose tones rang clear as a bell, told him to plan, to take care.  Experience was what had Dizzy pulling his phone from his kutte pocket and calling Ferret.

Ferret answered almost immediately. 
“Yeah, boss?”

“Brother, need some info on the pr....”  Shit, Josh was in the room.  He had to moderate his language.  “on the guy who manages the store on Westway.”

“The place Thea works?”

“Used to work. Yeah.”

Ferret paused for only one moment. 
“On it. Don’t hang up.  My laptop’s right here.”

Dizzy listened to shuffling, Velcro, a pause, then some frenetic tapping.

“Where are you?”

“At the clubhouse.  Okay, I’ve got him.  Dwight Rodgers.  Got his car details, his home address, shit load of other bits and pieces.  Nothin’ to catch the eye from what I’m seein’ on the face of it.  What’s up?”

“I can’t explain here. There are ears.”  Dizzy turned away from the sofa and the TV and kept his voice low.

“You’re at home, right?”

“Yeah.  Young ears.”

“Shit.”
  There was a pause.  Dizzy knew Ferret was putting together the pieces of the cryptic puzzle and wondering what could have happened that had resulted in Thea losing her job and Josh not being able to hear about it.  Oh, and maybe also factoring in that his boss’s voice was tense with the need to break shit.

“The little fuck tried somethin’, didn’t he?  Boss?”

“Yeah.”

“Christ’s sakes.   You are not fuckin’ goin’ there on your own.” 

“Wasn’t plannin’ to.”  Dizzy said through gritted teeth.

“Are you goin’ to his house?”

Experience tapped Dizzy on the shoulder.  Plan.  Prepare for all eventualities.

He sighed.  “I don’t know whether or not he’s still at the store.”

Ferret paused. 
“Right.  Me and Easy will go to the dick’s house.  If he’s there, we’ll hold him for you.  That frees you up to take Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumber to the store.”

“That’s what I was thinkin’.”

“Okay.  I’ll call if we find him at his house.”

“Thanks, brother.” 

“No problem, boss.”

Dizzy ended the call and replaced the phone in his pocket.  He turned back to the giddy trio who were still abusing his Xbox.

“Scoob?  Shaggy?  Need you with me, brothers.”

One look at him and they knew it was business.  “Okay, boss.”

Josh was about to complain about their fun being interrupted when Thea called through from the kitchen that there was food available.  Her voice was louder than usual and full of a false brightness. Josh looked at Dizzy, and Dizzy saw that he got it.  Something was happening and his mother was trying to distract him.  Even though he couldn’t possibly have known what was wrong, he put the console controller on the table, scooted off the sofa, and went to his mama.  He was a good boy, a smart boy.

Scooby and Shaggy followed Dizzy outside.

“What’s up, boss?” Scooby asked as they mounted their bikes.

“Tell you when we get there.”  Dizzy needed the ride, even the scant feeling of freedom that the journey through town would provide, to calm the fuck down.  Dizzy twisted the throttle too hard and rolled out, his wheels kicking up clouds of dust.  His brothers followed him.

When he got to the store he was only marginally more calm than when he’d set off.  He parked on the street, and the other two men followed suit.  He didn’t want the loud roar of their bikes tipping the fucker off to their arrival.  He led them on foot into the parking lot of the store, and found Cage casually perched on his own bike, waiting for them.

“Ferret filled me in, Pres.  I haven’t seen the guy.  It’s the ditzy blonde workin’, but Fitz is round the back makin’ sure he don’t escape that way if he’s in there.”

“Good.”

He had good brothers.  He had a good table.  They had his back.  He could rely on them.  They were filling in the gaps that he had overlooked in his haste and anger.

He walked into the store with three of his men at his back.

“Heya darlin’.”  The overdone blonde with her tits half hanging out of her top was leaning on the counter over an open magazine.

She looked up, surprised, then she smiled in a way that she probably thought was alluring.  She didn’t straighten, but she did push her elbows together, damn near pushing her tits out of her fucking top.  “Hello, boys.  What can I do for y’all?”

“Don’t s’pose your boss is around, is he?”

“Dwight?  I mean, Mr. Rodgers?”  Dizzy nodded.  “Sure he’s in back.  Should I get him?” 

“If you wouldn’t mind, darlin’.”  Dizzy laid the charm on thick.

The blonde left through the door behind the counter that Dizzy knew led to the employee’s lounge and the back exit.  She was soon back.

“I don’t understand.  I thought he was in there.”  She leant over the counter, deliberately offering another flash of cleavage, and peered out of the glass doors. “His car’s still here.   But he’s not in his office.  He might be in the john.”

“No problem, darlin’.  We’ll drop by another time.” 

They turned and left, strolling casually in the direction of the street, but away from the store’s wide glass doors.  When he was sure they were out of sight of the counter, Dizzy doubled back and led them around the side of the building.  Sure enough, Fitz was standing there, calmly holding the struggling piece of shit by his shirt collar.

“Hey, boss.”  They might have been meeting at a bar for all the import in Fitz’s tone.

“Hey.  See you caught yourself a little somethin’.”

“Yeah.  You never know what you’re gonna find out here with the trash.”

Dizzy nodded to the two biggest men.  “Hold him steady.”

The worm twisted frantically in Fitz’s grasp, but Shaggy and Scooby captured him in a grip he couldn’t escape.  They held him between them, holding his arms outstretched.  He couldn’t escape unless he ripped his own limbs off.  Fitz stood back and let the big guys do what they were good at.

Dizzy took his position in front of the piece of shit.

“Afternoon, Mr. Rodgers.”

“Let me go!  How dare you!  I’ll go to the Sheriff about this!”  The short man was doing his best to be self-righteous.

“No.  You won’t.  It seems we have a bit of a problem.  A small misunderstanding.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t done anythin’.”  He was whining now.  That pissed Dizzy off.

“Oh, I think you know what you’ve done.  You know, or you wouldn’t have tried to run like the pussy piece of shit that you are.  You tried to force yourself on my old lady this afternoon.”

As he was concentrating on Dwight, Dizzy felt rather than saw, the ripple of reaction from his brothers.  He saw Scooby and Shaggy’s massive hands tighten and heard the accompanying squeal of pain from their captive.

“I didn’t!  I didn’t! I swear!  She’s lyin’!  I caught her stealin’ from the register and fired her ass.  I didn’t try nothin’.”  Whining and pleading.  The lying, spineless cunt had no balls.

Dizzy’s fist whipped out in a jab.  Dwight’s lower lip was suddenly split and bleeding.

“Say again?”  Dizzy gave him another chance to condemn himself further.

“Okay, okay.”  Dwight’s words were slightly thicker now, tumbling out past his rapidly swelling mouth.  “She can have her job back.”

Dizzy planted a solid left into the worm’s gut.  If he hadn’t been held so tightly, he would have doubled over, but now he could only grunt and gasp.

“You think she wants to come back here and work for you?  Why’d you run, Dwight?  If you’d fired her fair an’ square for stealin’, why’d you run from me?”

Dwight was wheezing and shaking his head.  Dizzy landed an open-handed slap square on his ear to hurry him up.  The worm squealed.

“Because.... because....”

Dizzy’s tone was almost soothing and conversational.  Almost.  “Don’t lie to me, Dwight.  I’ve no fuckin’ patience on a good day.  I’m runnin’ extra thin today, since my lady comes home tellin’ me you laid hands on her.  Tellin’ me that you would’ve laid more’n that on her if she hadn’t fought you off.  And that you fired her to save your tiny pride.  And Dwight, in a contest of who I trust, between you and Thea, the winner ain’t you.”

“That fuckin’ whore.”

A red mist clouded Dizzy’s vision, but he still managed to aim only one heavy punch in Dwight’s skinny gut.  He had to jump back when the man spewed vomit all down himself and over the blacktop in front of him.

“Say again?”

Dwight apparently had no sense of self preservation.

“Whore....fuckin’... opens...  her legs... for anyone.... with a bike... but I... can’t get some.”

Experience was tapping quite insistently on Dizzy’s shoulder now.  Dizzy was about ready to take his gun out and shoot the little fucker, but his life had been saved many times by listening to the nagging little fuck, so listen he did.  Yeah, he could kill Dwight, but that’d be counterproductive if he ended up in prison.  Dizzy looked around.  They were hidden from the road by dumpsters and the store itself.  Scooby and Shaggy maybe not so much; it was probably possible to see those two massive bastards from space.