Prodigal Son (12 page)

“What’s on your mind?” Jimmy asked once we had some privacy.

“Well, I want to bounce some ideas off you both.”

I was perplexed, unsure why he’d want my opinion on anything, especially since it seemed like the only things Joker really cared about were the MC (which I knew little about,) bikes (which I knew even less about,) and having a good time (which I heartily endorsed.)

“Jimmy, we have to do something about the Sons. We have to figure out a way to replace the income that we lost when we gave up the crank business. I’m not gonna lose my house, and I don’t want to get a job and have to work for a fucking living like every other poor slob.”

Jimmy looked surprised. “Joker, no offense, man, but we should not be talking about this in front of Luke. I know he’s your kid, but he ain’t a Savage Son.”

“I can give you guys some privacy,” I said, starting to stand up.

Joker put his hand on my shoulder. “You don’t need to go anywhere. Jimmy, Luke’s my son, and even though that don’t mean much, it means that if he wants to be a part of the MC, I’ll vouch for him.”

I didn’t know what to say. It was my first day on a bike, and even though I’d enjoyed the ride, it had never occurred to me to think about becoming a Savage Son.

Jimmy looked pissed. “That ain’t the way things work, Joker. We can’t start making exceptions just ‘cause some kid shows up and says he’s related to you. You don’t even know if he’s telling the truth. He could be a fed, planted to get intel about the Sons, brother. We don’t discuss club business in front of outsiders.”

“Luke is no outsider. He may have just gotten here, but I aim to make up for lost time. I founded this MC, and I make the rules. Now, can we get back to the subject? How are we gonna make up the money we’ve lost?”

Jimmy shook his head and looked like he wanted to argue, but decided against it. “Joker, I don’t know, man. I got nothing. We know that the feds are probably watching us, and that don’t leave a whole lot of room for starting up a new operation. I’d thought about taking a page from the casinos and opening up our back room for poker games, but I’m afraid it’ll draw too much attention, and I don’t know how much money it’ll actually bring in.”

Joker lit another cigarette — the rules that governed the rest of the casino obviously didn’t apply in the room we occupied. “I got some girls ready to go back to work, but that’s only gonna make up a fraction of what we’re missing.” He ran his fingers through his hair and leaned back in his chair. “I need a new idea. Something that people want that we can give ‘em and charge lots of money for.”

A thought occurred to me. I remembered the one time that I’d actually had more cash than I knew what to do with, and I knew right away that the Sons could make my idea work for them.

“I know this really isn’t my business, but have you thought about weed?”

Jimmy shook his head. “Nah, man. The feds would shut us down in a minute. And there’s not enough money in weed.”

I sat up straighter as the idea worked itself out in my head. “Hear me out. The feds aren’t going to shut you down if you’re not doing anything illegal. You live in Colorado. There’s a dispensary on every corner, selling more weed than you can imagine — and it’s all perfectly legal.”

Joker wasn’t buying it. “That’s part of the problem, Luke. That’s one of the reasons there’s no money in weed anymore. It’s too easy to get, and the shit they’re selling now is so fucking potent, one hit, and you’re stoned.”

“So you open a dispensary and you sell the best weed in town — sticky, nasty buds that will blow your mind. You’ll have people lined up around the block to get your shit because it’s so good.”

“Where the fuck do you get weed like that? And open a dispensary? There’s no way in hell they’d give us a license for that.” Jimmy waved his hand as if he wanted to dismiss the whole topic.

I held up a finger. “One, you grow it, and two, all you need is an investor, someone who’s never been in trouble with the law who’s willing to be the license-holder.”

Joker looked at me like I was speaking another language. “Luke, we’re outlaw bikers. We don’t have fucking investors, man.”

“You might be surprised.”

“And we don’t know anything about growing weed,” Jimmy added.

“I do,” I said with a smile. “When I was at ASU, my friends and I grew the best weed on campus. We started in our dorm room, believe it or not. We set up grow lights in our closet and supplied everyone on our floor. When we moved off campus, we rented a house with a basement and converted the whole downstairs to a pot farm. We had more money than we knew what to do with.”

“But can’t the cops tell when you’re growing?” Joker asked. “I heard that they can monitor your electric bill and shit.”

“Yeah, in some cases they can catch people who are too stupid to cover their tracks, but here’s the thing. You can grow legally in Colorado now. If you’re selling to a dispensary, it’s legit.”

Joker and Jimmy looked at one another.

Jimmy spoke first. “You know, it never occurred to me to do something legal.”

Joker still wasn’t convinced. “But won’t you lose all the profit to taxes and shit?”

“Absolutely not. A college buddy of mine has a medical marijuana business in California. He started with just a few plants and a single store. He now has a huge farm and a string of stores. We could make this work.”

“But where would we get the money to get started?” Jimmy asked, as if he was afraid of getting too excited about an idea that might not be feasible.

“Dude, I’m a business analyst. I can do this shit in my sleep. My parents left me some money, and I could get the license and cover the startup — for a percentage, of course.”

Joker looked like he was starting to get on board. “You sure you know enough to grow the stuff and get the business started?”

“Really? I’m insulted, Joker. Our bud was famous all over Arizona. Part of the key is marketing. You create a great name for the product, and I bet we would even have other dispensaries wanting to buy our weed. This will work, I guarantee it.”

Jimmy nearly jumped out of his chair. “We could call it Savage Bud, or something like that.”

“That’s the spirit,” I said, surprised to discover that I was actually getting excited about the prospect of starting a new venture.

“There’s one problem,” Joker said, looking me square in the eye. “The Sons will never do business like this with someone who’s not a member … or at least on his way to becoming one. You’ll have to become a prospect if this is gonna work.”

“Can’t you just make me a member? Give me the cut and call it a day?”

Jimmy shook his head. “No way. There’s no shortcut to becoming a full member. Everyone has to be a prospect for at least a year.”

“A year? That’s ridiculous.”

Joker agreed with Jimmy. “He’s right. It’s a year before you’re official, and no one ever moves up to prospect this quickly, but I’ll make an exception for you, both because you’re my son and because you may have the fuckin’ idea that gets us back in the money.”

I hadn’t really thought about trying to join the MC, but I’d had fun hanging out with the Sons the night before, and I’d sure enjoyed the ride up to Cripple Creek. Maybe I could take a longer leave of absence from work and actually do this thing — join the Savage Sons and start a new business. It would give me a chance to get to know Joker and Sable, and the change of scenery and of pace might be good for me.

“All right,” I said with a grin. “I’m in. Let’s do this thing, brothers.”

Jimmy ordered another round of shots, and I realized that my afternoon trip to Cripple Creek might turn into an all-nighter. We laughed, drank, and spent the rest of the day planning how Joker would announce me as a prospect and sell the other guys on the weed shop idea. He was sure he could get the Sons to vote me in, and he knew that everyone was so hard up for money that they’d welcome any plan to remedy that situation.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time and realized that a text message from Krystal had arrived about an hour before.

Looking forward to Friday ;-)

“Another benefit to staying in Denver,” I said under my breath as I tried to sober up enough to type out a coherent response.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

I
picked up my black eyeliner and brought it to my face before I realized that my hands were shaking too badly for me to even put makeup on. I was completely fucked. I was furious, I was hurt, and I was gonna find a way to get even with the piece of shit I called my boyfriend. Bug wasn’t gonna know what hit him, but he was gonna be sorry.

I’d finished my shift the night before and met Bug at the clubhouse. He never wanted to go anywhere else, and by the time I’d gotten there, he was drunk. Every now and then, he got kinda happy drunk, less groping and more affectionate. Last night hadn’t been one of those times. A couple of months before, a new guy from the Fort Collins chapter of the Savage Sons had patched over, and Bug was putting on quite the show for Nate, making sure that the new blood respected the Denver V.P.

Careful not to appear flirtatious with Nate — even though he was pretty freaking hot — I’d gone straight to Bug’s side. Since I’d known from the beginning that he was shitfaced, I’d been careful not to drink very much so that I could get myself home safely. I was just marking time until Bug would let me leave. After I’d listened to Bug tell Nate what great blow jobs I gave, and after I interrupted his listing all the guys in the MC that I’d fucked, I’d had enough. I went to the ladies room, told Bug that I was leaving because I had an early class, collected my purse from beneath my barstool, and I’d headed out with a sigh of relief.

Not until the next morning did I notice that every penny of my money was missing from my purse.

“Fucking Bug,” I muttered under my breath when I thought about it again.

I’d dumped the entire contents of my purse onto the kitchen counter, but it was all gone. My tip money from Wednesday night, and even worse was the missing envelope with all of my rent money. I knew that I shouldn’t carry that much cash, but my landlord gave me a five percent discount if I paid in cash, and every dime mattered to me. Now, I had no spending money, and no way to make the rent that was due in just a couple of days.

I was sure Bug had taken it. Ever since he’d stopped getting his cut of the meth and the hookers the Sons used to run, he’d been short on money. I’d thought about suggesting that he get a fucking job, but I knew that would go over like a fart in church. The first couple of times that he pretended to leave his wallet at home, I’d paid his bar tab, but I didn’t believe that bullshit anymore. He was broke, and he’d stolen my hard-earned money.

I wanted to kill him.

But I knew I couldn’t, if only because he wasn’t worth going to jail over. I checked the clock and saw that I had about forty-five minutes before I needed to leave for class. I poured myself another cup of coffee, and I sat down at the kitchen table to try to figure out what to do.

There were two problems I had to solve: the rent money and the Bug situation. I wondered if there was some way to solve them both at the same time. If I could get the money back from the asshole, then I could pay my rent and worry about dumping his ass later. I had two days before rent was due, and if I had to, I could probably dodge the landlord for a few more.

I picked up the phone to text Bug, deciding that I’d try to get him to let me cook dinner for him later that night. I knew I could make sure he had enough to drink that he’d sleep like a rock and I could look for my money later that night. Shit, I even had some sleeping pills that Red had left behind that I could put in his food that would knock him out. Maybe I’d be lucky enough that he’d never wake up.

Fantasizing about Bug’s lifeless body, I nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone beeped to tell me a text message had arrived.

Game starts at 7. Can I pick you up at 5:30?

I set the phone down and sighed. I wanted nothing more than to pretend that I could somehow have a normal relationship with a guy like Luke, but if I was honest with myself, there was no way it could work. If you put a lineup of guys in front of me, I was sure to pick the biggest asshole every time. That didn’t mean that I was gonna turn down a date, though. If I took my money back from Bug tonight, then he’d probably be pissed enough that he wouldn’t bother to try to find me tomorrow.

I looked around my apartment, thinking that I really didn’t want Luke to see where I lived. It was clean, but it was in a shitty part of town, and it just looked so dingy, especially compared to his fancy suite.

I work until 5. Can meet u at the bar or at your hotel.

I figured that we could walk from either spot to the field, and I wouldn’t mind hanging out at the Ritz again.

“Back to reality,” I said as I packed up my books and headed out to class. As early as it was, and as drunk as Bug had been the night before, I figured that I should wait to call him until he’d had a chance to sober up and get some sleep. It wasn’t like he had a job that he had to get up early for.

In the break between my classes, I took a deep breath and called Bug.

“Yeah?” he said when he picked up.

“Good morning, sugar,” I said, just pouring on the sweetness.

I got an unintelligible grunt in reply.

“I’m feeling like I’m in the mood to cook a good dinner for you tonight. Your place or mine?” I put as much sex into my voice as I could, hoping that the promise of a meal and a piece of ass would make him overlook that fact that I could easily figure out where my fucking money had gone.

“Mine, I guess.”

It sounded like Bug stood up and stretched. I figured he probably was just getting out of bed.

“Long night?” I asked.

“Kinda. I gotta piss. What time you comin’ over?”

“I’ll be there around seven. See you then.”

I hung up the phone, just revolted by the man. I’d always been turned on by guys who were rough around the edges, but Bug was just gross. I knew that I wasn’t exactly the classiest girl around, but he was vile. I wanted to get my money back and leave him behind. I hoped it would be that simple.