Troubleshooter (4 page)

Knowing that Bear's fascination with the lurid would likely lead to a conversational detour, Tim steered Guerrera back on track. "What else did Haines get?"

"Looks to be an AR-15, same they used in the break. Sheriff's devoted a lot of units to the area, but nothing doing. Bikers are too fast. Those boys were long gone before Sheriff's even got the call."

Bear gestured ahead, to where the road wound down through the hills. "Piru's less than ten miles from the Sinner clubhouse."

The truck veered close to the high-rising canyon wall, and Tim could see where people had etched graffiti into the rock. SEAN + SUZIE. MICKEY P IS NO STRANGER TO THE HOG. SINNER TERRITORY: GUARD YER WOMEN. "Chooch Millan," Tim said. "He an officer?"

"Not according to Haines."

"Nomad?"

Guerrera shook his head. "No one important. Just a regular Cholo. What's up?"

"It seems odd. The Sinners risked a high-profile break. If the motive was revenge for Nigger Steve--the first Sinner nomad to be killed--why wouldn't they waste someone higher up the food chain? Or pull off something bigger in scope? Shooting a regular member on a deserted road? That's chickenshit. It doesn't add up."

"Maybe they just wanted to punch someone's clock," Bear said. "Get the ball rolling."

"I'm with Rack," Guerrera said. "It's not how these guys think. They usually want to go bigger, you know? Their egos are built for escalation."

"How do you know so much about all this shit?" Bear asked.

Guerrera shrugged. "I grew up in a crap town outside Miami. Me and my brothers rode with a junior club out there, the Vatos. That's all there was to do. Tool your sled and follow the asphalt. So we did. The motherfuckers graduated to the Cholos."

"And you?" Tim asked.

"I bailed out. Went to the Corps."

A half-burned tree barely maintained its clutch on a ridge, and all three took a moment to admire its tenacity.

"I hate those guys. Ate up my barrio. Left a lot of mis hermanos horizontal."

"Your actual brothers?"

"Nah. We all got out. Mama's too tough to put up with that shit."

They were in the Fillmore flats now, weaving through a gone-to-hell neighborhood. Guerrera took in a Confederate flag waving atop a lawn-stranded car up on blocks. "We don't need backup, huh?" He tried to strike a casual tone but fell short of the mark.

"The nomads aren't dumb enough to be there," Tim said. "We have to draw them out. And we have a better shot at watching them if they're trying to watch us."

"Or trying to kill us," Bear offered.

"That, too."

Bear idled up to the curb, parking behind an endless row of Harleys. Set back behind a jagged fence loomed a sprawling, dilapidated house. At one point it had been farm style, but it was burdened with so many build-ons and repairs that it had surrendered any show of unity. Bike parts littered the front yard, half buried in dirt where a lawn had expired. The Sinners had enough money hidden in various accounts to tear the place down and erect a castle, but the road-grit theme seemed more suitable. Sandbags were piled thigh-high around the walls, and chicken wire guarded the already barred windows from grenade lobs.

Guerrera dabbed the sweat off his forehead. He checked the clip in his Glock and reholstered it. His hands were trembling, ever so slightly. "You should see the shit they've done to hispanos."

"It's okay," Tim said. "We'll take lead."

"I'm not worried about it, I'm just saying I hate these guys."

They climbed out. Immediately floodlights clicked on, and two junkyard mutts with pit bull-square heads hurled themselves against the chain-link, snarling. A security camera pivoted atop a post, facing them like the head of a robot. Tim pulled out his badge and creds and held them up to the lens.

A moment later a hulking guy with an ace of diamonds tattooed on his shaved skull stepped onto the porch and whistled off the dogs. Tim matched him with a description from the Sheriff's incipient database--Diamond Dog Phillips.

"You got a warrant?"

"We're not here to bust your balls," Tim said. "Just want to introduce ourselves to Uncle Pete."

"We could go get one...." Bear offered helpfully, angling his wide frame back toward his truck.

Diamond Dog scowled and retreated back into the house. They waited patiently. He reappeared five minutes later, strode down the walk, and opened the myriad locks on the gate. They followed him inside, stepping into a dark, cavernous living room.

A few members milled around with slags tarted up in holiday-red-and-green spandex midriffs and microminis. A bank of closed-circuit telemonitors showed off exterior views of the clubhouse. In the background over the pinball machine's annoying leitmotif, Bearcat scanners chirped, monitoring police frequencies. Steel armor and cinder blocks rimmed the walls from the floor to the bottoms of the windows. A few gunports had been cut on either side of the front door, which had been transplanted from a Mosler walk-in safe. A hint of rot informed the humid air, maybe the smell of soiled leather. Still, the house was in its way another example of high-end L.A. real estate. The decorating budget had just been dispensed according to biker taste and priorities.

"Sit on the couch," Diamond Dog said.

A slag paraded past, swaying her hips, flame tattoos coming up from the waistband of her jeans as if announcing vigorous VD. The front of her shirt proclaimed I'M THE BITCH WHO FELL OFF THE BIKE. Slung in one arm was a baby with a chain tattooed around its neck. Bear and Guerrera sat, but Tim got caught staring.

"Relax, Heat. It's henna."

"That's Federal Heat to you."

Diamond Dog stood over them, arms crossed, two other club members behind him in a V formation as if posing for a Tarantino one-sheet. One wore shades despite the dim light, the other an unbuttoned biker vest with no undershirt, a toe tag dangling from his pierced nipple. The guy in shades turned around to catch an airborne can of beer. The back of his T-shirt declared, IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THE BITCH FELL OFF MY BIKE.

"Oh," Bear said. "I get it now."

A coffin in front of the couch served as a coffee table. To the left, a bike painted with distinctive skull patterns dripped oil onto the worn carpet. A lollipop dental mirror poked out from the handlebars as the rearview--letter-of-the-law compliance.

Guerrera gestured at the bike. "Beautiful spray job."

Diamond Dog scratched his crotch, disrupting the tough-guy aesthetics. "That's Danny the Wand's work, hijo. Twelve coats of paint on the gas tank alone. You don't even deserve to look at it."

"Danny the Wand?" Bear said. "The guy's a John Holmes or something?"

Diamond Dog laughed with his cohorts, showing off a missing front tooth. "Yeah, that's it. Danny's big dick."

A few Sinners gathered in the doorway to the accompanying room. Prosthetic limbs, do-rags, missing earlobes--they looked like a gathering of well-fed carnies. "Hey, Annie." An older biker curled his finger at her. The end of a bare mattress was barely in view beyond the door-jamb.

As Annie handed off the baby, Tim noticed shiny scars running down her legs like seams. Den's sartorial experiment?

She headed into the other room. Noting Bear's expression of disgust, Diamond Dog smirked and tilted his head at Annie. "You want a piece?"

"I wouldn't fuck her with your dick and him pushing."

"I ain't screwin' no cop," Annie called back over her shoulder.

"Right," Bear said. "Wouldn't want to lower your standards."

She disappeared into the fold of men. The older guy grasped her shoulders, and they stepped back onto the mattress, disappearing from view. The others waited, thumbing their belt loops and grinning.

"Why don't you lend a hand?" Bear said, gesturing to the other room. "I think they need someone to run anchor."

One of the other bikers laughed. "Dog picked himself up a good case of the Mexican crabs."

The skin on Guerrera's face was taut. "They're different across the border?"

"Yeah." He launched into a not-bad accent. "They doan gah no car insurance."

Laughter and high fives.

Guerrera said, "Now I get why you're missing that front tooth."

The sounds from the other room grew louder. Someone called, "Hey, Toe-Tag. Whelp. You waiting for a written invite?"

"Cool names," Bear said. "You guys have a tree fort out back, too?"

The two shuffled off to take their place in the train, clearing Tim's view of the far wall, where leather jackets were strung like game fish, crude placards affixed to them. Most of them featured Cholo originals, stripped from ass-kicked members. Outlaws who lost their colors--but survived--had to reclaim them to return to their clubs or, in some cases, to keep their lives; the bold display was a virtual advertisement to their rivals for a clubhouse raid. Tim thought of Chooch Millan's jacket, stripped from his dead body only hours ago, and figured that the Sinners destroyed stolen colors that doubled as evidence. Only two Sinner originals were in the mix, Nigger Steve's barely visible through the gloom.

Tim pointed to the other jacket featuring the Sinner flaming skull. "Did Lash get killed, too?"

"Nah, good ol' Lash couldn't behave himself. He had his patch taken back."

Tim looked over, catching Bear's eye. A guy who got kicked out of the club was a guy who might talk.

"For what?"

"Nosy fucker, aren't you?"

Bear put his feet up on the coffin, and Diamond Dog shoved them off with a boot. "Don't you got no respect?"

Bear drew himself to his full height, a head above Diamond Dog. Whelp jogged over, and a moment later Toe-Tag followed, buttoning his pants. Guerrera stood quickly, then Tim, and then eight or ten outlaws pulled behind the other bikers as if magnetically. Annie was in the doorway, cloaking her body with a jacket, breathing hard.

Bear's eyes stayed locked on Diamond Dog's as if the others didn't exist.

A knocking of boots on stairs, and then a woman with feathered brown hair and a leather jacket appeared. "Uncle Pete'll see you now."

The bikers' posture loosened a bit, and Tim, Bear, and Guerrera backed away from the standoff. They followed the woman, her PROPERTY OF UNCLE bottom rocker tilting back and forth as she made her way upstairs. The pinkie on her left hand was missing.

They threaded their way through dark halls on the second floor. A teenage girl popped into view, startling Tim. Her head was down, her arms tightly crossed above her breasts to hold together a ripped shirt. She flashed past, almost colliding with their nine-fingered escort, mumbling to herself. Her tangled blond hair clung to her moist cheeks, and one eye was swollen.

The woman in the leather jacket pointed at the double doors through which the crying girl had emerged. "In there."

The three men stepped through the door into a large room--the original master suite?--where an enormous figure sat on a bowed king-size bed. A standard poodle lying at the foot of the mattress bared his teeth silently at them, black skin showing beneath the white hair where it was shaved close. The windows were shuttered; it took a moment for Tim's vision to adjust.

Uncle Pete held a spotted rag poised over his flabby arm. He returned to dabbing blood from a meaty biceps, applying himself to the undertaking with the silent contentment of a retired general painting model tanks. Three deep streaks, the kind left by fingernails. A hank of long blond hair lay on the carpet at his feet. The sheets were mussed.

"Frisky cunt. I like 'em that way." Uncle Pete folded the rag and reapplied it, his flat eyes never leaving his task. A rubber-banded thatch of beard poked out from his chin like a stiff rope. "You the ones behind all the sudden interest from the heat? We're catching a lot of static on the streets."

"Yup," Tim said. "That'd be us."

Uncle Pete shook his head. "Some mornings, it just ain't worth chewin' through the four-point restraints." He raised his head, and his eyes sharpened. "Get that Mexican outta here."

Guerrera's voice came out a little tighter than usual. "I'm Cuban."

"Oh. Well, then..." Pete laughed, his chest rippling beneath the undershirt. "Don't want no spics of any kind in here. Just born-and-bred Americans."

"Okay, Pocahontas."

Uncle Pete stared at Tim, figuring him for the front man. "Get that spic out of here or no conversation."

Guerrera started for the biker, sharply, but Tim stepped in front of him, cutting off his advance while keeping his eyes on Pete. Guerrera stayed pressed against Tim's back but didn't move to brush past him.

Pete seemed invigorated by Guerrera's reaction. "Get the spic out of my clubhouse."

"You want him out, you get him out," Tim said. Bear ostentatiously took up position beside Guerrera.

Uncle Pete squinted through the dim light, no doubt debating an escalation, but then he smiled. "I recognize you. Vigilante guy, right? You're the one who croaked all those motherfuckers back when. You need a nickname."

"Use my real name, thanks."

"Sorry, pal, everyone gets a nickname." Uncle Pete rolled his head back on his neck, appraising Tim. The rag disappeared in the swirled sheets, Pete's thick hand in the pouf of hair at the dog's hindquarters. "I'm gonna call you Troubleshooter."