Rod (14 page)

I hop back on my bike and head out to
Hayleysville
.
 
If
anyone questions my motives out there, I plan to tell them that it’s all part
of the investigation.

A half hour passes and I’m outside of the
Deathdealers
’ known hideout.
 
The place is huge, wooden and has a skull and
crossbones stationed outside to mark it for members.
 
I park my bike in back, taking care to keep
it out of sight.

I push the door open and am greeted by
Sal.
 
He’s a soft in the middle older guy
with greasy black hair and dirty jeans.
 

“Pat him down,” my father instructs.
 
“He’s been with the Dragons for too long; we
can’t take any chances.”

Sal gets off of his stool and walks over
to me.
 
“Arms up,” he says, knowing the
drill.

I raise my arms and insist, “I didn’t
bring a fucking gun to the club, old man.”

“Then you won’t have a problem with the
search, so shut the fuck up and let him do his job.”

“Such bullshit,” I protest as he
pats
me down from shoulder to feet.

“He’s clean,” Sal says turning back to sit
back on his stool.

The club is dark and full of some shady
looking characters.
 
I gather that there
are at least thirty hardened criminals in the place.
 

“Alright, come with me,” my father tells
me as he waves me forward.

“Was that fucking necessary?” I ask.

“Yes.”

I take a breath of disbelief.

“Speaking of those assholes in the
Dragons, what’s going on over there?” He asks me.

“They’re still in the middle of searching
for the president’s twelve-year-old daughter,” I tell him.

“Twelve, huh?” He licks his lips like a
fucking pig.

“Yeah, everyone is busy taking up the
cause.
 
Myself
included.”

“Have you gone soft, son?”

“No, it’s just that you don’t mess with
someone’s fucking kid,” I growl.

“Are you saying that I’ve messed with
someone’s kid?” he groans.

He
stands up, extends his hand to my throat with a quick motion and grasps
hard.
 

“Are you fucking saying that I had
anything to do with kidnapping a fucking twelve-year-old kid?”

His grip tightens and I wonder if my dad
has the balls to actually go through with this.
 
He walks me to the wall and slams my body into it by my throat.
 
I blink and feel the blood rushing to my
face.

He lets me go and stands there in his oil
and dirt stained denim jacket.

“You better watch it around here, we’re
not pussies like those assholes in the Dragons,” he tells me as I regain a
regular flow of air into my body.

I throw my hands up as if to say, ‘Take it
easy,’ but he stares at me in disbelief.

“Are you soft, son?
 
Need an ass kicking to get you back up to
par?”
 
He takes a long gulp of his beer
and throws the bottle into the fireplace.
 
His buddies are at the bar all egging him on.

“I’m only looking for information.
 
Fucking with family is serious,” I tell him.

“If anyone fucks with my family, they’ll
fucking die,” he says to the sound of cheering from his friends.

“Exactly,” I agree.

“So, where do your loyalties lie, son?” he
asks with the threat of a beer bottle up against my head.
 

“With the club,” I lie.
 

“Damn right!” He says.
 
“With us, there’s only one way out and that’s
when
ya
die.”

“Fuckin’ A,” I yell, trying to fit right
in with these clowns.
 

“That’s right, kid,” he says appearing in
the role of the proud father.
 
He pats my
shoulder and smiles a crooked grin.

“Fuck yeah,” I shout as I walk to the bar
and get a beer.
 
Taking a long swig, I
clink my beer bottle with my father’s.
 

He looks unshaven and his brown hair looks
dirty.
 
His whiskers are growing in to be
a whitish-grey color and his wrinkles show his age.
 
He looks like a rough and tough version of
Willie Nelson, without the long hair.
 

“If we can secure the Hinton Township area
for the
Deathdealers
, you know what that means,” he
declares.

The club members go wild with anticipation
and I join them.
 
I drink down an entire
beer and slam it on the counter.
 
“Another!” I yell at the older, overly made-up barmaid.
 
She slides another beer my way and I snatch
it up.

Dad puts his arm around me as he walks me
around the place.
 
He says, “It means
more fucking money in everyone’s pockets around here.
 
More money means more beer, more bitches, and
more fucking bikes.
 
That territory will
be ours, with your help.”

As he speaks to me, he pushes his pointer
finger into my chest to accentuate the words.

“So, tell me what you know,” he demands.

“What I know?” I ask.

“Yeah, don’t be stupid.
 
Tell me what you know about the Green
Dragons.
 
I need names of their patch
members and officers.
 
You know, who might
switch sides and all that.”

“It’s not like I could taking fucking roll
call,” I say in response.

“You don’t know anyone’s names?” he
pushes.

“A few guys, but no one of importance,” I
tell him.

“Who do you know?” he pushes.

“This guy Scott, and the president’s
daughter Trish,” I say.

“You know the president’s daughter?
 
That’s a good way in,” he tells me.

“She’s fucking hot, too,” I offer, hoping
to deflect from my knowledge of her.

“Fuck her and make her come to the dark
side,” he tells me as if it’s in confidence.
 

“That’s the plan,” I tell him with a
shit-eating grin on my face.
 

“That’s my fucking boy,” he yells
proudly.
 
“So you don’t know any
names?
 
Get them.”

“I will do as much as I can without
throwing them off,” I say.

“That’s my boy,” he reiterates.

“It’s just harder because of the
kidnapping.
 
If that didn’t happen, I’d
probably be a full patch member of the Dragons by now.
 
I’d have their full trust and would know how
everything operates.”

My father smiles like that’s the greatest
idea.
 

“Find the fucking girl and get back down
to business,” he commands.
 

“Yeah, the girl getting taken has thrown a
monkey wrench into everything.”

“Well, you know what they say.
 
It’s always better to kick them when they’re
down.”

He grins and chugs another beer.
 
He discards this one by throwing the bottle
into the fire, joining his first beer.
 

I chug mine and follow suit.
 
I can’t play both ends against the middle,
it’s too hard.
 
My father is a straight
up criminal and those who fear him still want him stopped.
 

“Get out there and get us some
intel
, son,” he says with a push in the direction of the
door.
 

I walk outside of the club, and with a
deep breath, I’m back on my bike riding away from the place at high
speeds.
 
I don’t need anyone seeing me
leave from there, even though I’m pretty sure that the Dragons won’t dare to
come out this far.

I stop at a gas station close to Hinton
Heights where I refuel my bike.
 
A text
message interrupts my thoughts.

“Do
ya
got
a picture of that girl?” my father asks via text
message.

“Oh shit,” I say to myself.
 
I don’t need those guys to get involved if
they aren’t already.

I text back, “Yeah,
lemme
send it.”

I scroll through the pictures stored on my
cell phone and send the one of Sasha to my father.

Minutes later, another message comes through:
“Oh, she’s a pretty little girl.”

I text back, “It’ll help both of our
causes if she’s found.”

“K,”
he
texts
back.

I feel a gut-wrenching feeling that my
father is has some sort of involvement in Sasha’s disappearance.
 
I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s
something not out of the realm of possibility where my father and his criminal
activities are concerned.

I think back to a younger member of the
club offering to sell out his own mother for two lines of cocaine.
 
The red-headed kid was dying for a fix and he
told the members that his mother offered to help.
 
My father and Sal were quick to oblige, right
in the middle of the club.
 
To anyone
watching, he threatened us all with death if we spoke of the incident.
 
That incident plays sharply in my head and I
wonder what they would do with Sasha if they’ve got her.
 
I tense up.
 
He’s involved, I just know it.

Chapter Eight

Trish Fitzgerald

I pop open my laptop and examine the leads
I’ve got tucked away in the Word document.
 
Little clues that leave breadcrumbs for further investigation excite me
and I dig even deeper.
 

I walk to my bed, snatch up my notebook
and an ink pen.
 
Once back in front of my
laptop, I begin making notes about what I can look at further.
 

My eyes scroll through every last detail
and a few things stand out to me.
 
Boris
Cardov
has some shady dealings in the club that I need to
check out.
 
Ken Clayton is also shady and
I wonder if they are working together.
 

I scribble down in my notebook: “Perhaps
the fight was to throw everyone off?”

Are they that stupid and obvious?

I write down the name Lester Samson and
circle it twice.
 
There has to be more to
that story than meets the eye.
 
I know
that Ken Clayton is dirt poor and Boris
Cardov
is
dealing drugs to the newer members of the club.
 
If dad caught wind of this, he’d likely break their necks.

My eyes hit Rodney’s name and I light
up.
 
He’s a beacon of sexy support and
guidance through all of this.
 
I catch
myself feeling guilty for the time we spend together, but like a moth to a
flame, I can’t help myself.

The only thing weird about Rodney is his
father.
 
I say to myself, “How could such
a good guy come from a low-life snake in the grass – as he calls his father,
Seth?”

“Seth Vinton, Seth Vinton,” I repeat as if
it’s bound to ring a bell.

I decide to type his name into Google to
see if I can jar my memory of why this guy’s name is lingering in my head.

“Notorious Leader of the
Deathdealers
, Seth Vinton, Jailed for Robbery,” screams one
headline.
 

“Holy shit,” I say to myself at the
revelation.
 
It can’t be.
 

I click the link under the headline to
learn more about Seth Vinton.
 
The
article informs me that Seth was jailed back in 2002 for ten years after
robbing an elderly lady in her own home.
 
His mugshot graces the page and I swallow hard.
 
He and Rodney have the same shape eyes; it
can’t be a coincidence.

I think to myself how my father really
needs to get his shit together when allowing new members into the club.
 
These guys need to go through a vetting
process before they even get any consideration, I tell myself.
 

Thinking back to Rodney’s questioning, I
remember him saying that his father is basically a piece of shit.
 
I guess it wouldn’t make sense for him to
tell me that his father is actually the leader of a rival club.
 
I’m the president’s daughter and he probably
thinks that I’ll run and tell my father the first thing.