Authors: Carmella Jones
Chapter Thirteen: Peach
I was pretty wrung out when I straddled my Fat Boy and started back toward home. I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep, but there wasn’t any lying around for me the following morning. I had cash to pick up and deliver back to Bulldog. Everything had to seem just as normal as possible if I was going to pull things off.
The long ride back home gave me plenty of time to go back over everything that had happened in the past twelve hours. Waffles had been the perfect way to bring things away from pent-up desire and more toward casual conversation. I had started to draw Trevor in from the moment that we sat down and made our orders.
“So, it’s cool that we could get away from the action and noise of the casino where we could do a little talking, huh?” I started in. I decided that I might as well let him know that I wanted to have a conversation from the outset.
“I suppose,” he replied. “We could have talked over a steak and a glass of wine.”
“Too much like a date,” I replied with a smile.
“You don’t like dates?”
“I didn’t say that. I just didn’t want to have a date with you.”
I watched a little bit of disappointment mixed with confusion register on his face. “Okay, you don’t want to date me. I guess that you and Bulldog are pretty tight, then?”
“Yeah, right,” I laughed. “He’s probably banging three groupies as we speak.”
“Seriously?”
“Do you really think that he’s faithful?”
“You two seemed to get along pretty well,” he replied.
“So did you two,” I said, leaving a little bit of a hint in tone of my voice. Would he bite? That all depended on how strong the bond between them was.
“Yeah,” he grinned. “I know what you mean.”
“So, tell me about you and Bulldog meeting in Baghdad.” It was a shift in the conversation, but I hoped that I had planted the seed that would make him talk about the negative side of their friendship.
“There isn’t a lot to tell, really,” he started off with a shrug. “I was called in to dispose of an IED in the sector where Bulldog’s detachment was assigned to patrol. I took care of it and afterward, Bulldog and I got to talking. While we were standing there shootin’ the breeze, somebody rode by on one of those rice-burner motorcycles and I made a comment about it. That’s when we discovered that we were both Harley lovers. From that point on, we had some drinks together and got to talking more about bikes. He was set to take his out, but I still had about a year and a half to do. He told me to look him up when I got out. We kept in touch and I did as he suggested.”
“So, you guys aren’t really close?” I asked. I was pretty sure that I was leading our conversation in the right direction. He definitely wasn’t using words like how “tight” they had become, “best buds,” or anything that might indicate that there was anything more than a professional relationship and a love of Harleys. Getting between them might not be as hard as I thought. “More of a working relationship, then?”
“You could say that,” he replied. “When I looked him up after I got back to the States, I went to work doing what I’m doing. It’s grown into more than I had originally expected it to be.”
“Your friendship?” I asked.
Our order arrived at about the worst possible moment. I was pretty sure that I had him about to spill the things that I was hoping to get out of him. Though I was starved and eager to dig into the bacon, sausage and waffles, I wasn’t sure if I could draw him back to where he had left off. To my surprise, a few bites later, I didn’t have to. He continued on his own. Bacon and waffles are just a great way to get people to talk.
“Not the friendship,” he replied after swallowing. “The friendship, if you could really call it that, is more of a professional relationship, but he’s hardly my friend. I shouldn’t say that, I guess. We aren’t necessarily at odds with each other, but, well, I probably shouldn’t talk bad about him in front of you…”
I put my hand over my mouth to hold back a laugh that might have sprayed waffles across the table. When I swallowed, I let the laugh come on out. “I’m really just a booty call to him. I can probably tell you more bad things about him than you can tell me.” That little show, though it was more acting than it was truth, was exactly what I needed to draw the rest out of him.
“Alright,” he said, smiling as he lowered his tone. “If you tell anybody I said this, I’ll have to kill you.”
“That’s pretty serious,” I said, widening my eyes dramatically. “It must be bad.”
“If you’re Bulldog’s spy, I’m probably already screwed,” he laughed.
“I assure you that I’m not his spy,” I replied.
“Yeah, spies always deny who they work for,” he countered with a grin.
I raised my skin and stretched my throat out toward him. “If I’m his spy, then I’ll freely offer this and you can take me out.”
“Well,” he said, licking his lips. “I’ve got some other ideas for that. Maybe I’ll kill you afterwards.”
“You’re horrible,” I giggled. “Get back to your story. I want to hear what dirt you have on our boss.”
“Bitchin’ about the boss,” he chuckled. “Isn’t that a truly American pastime?”
“Even more so than baseball,” I responded.
His expression changed as he tried to come up with the right words to explain whatever it was between him and Bulldog that caused that latent tension that I’d sensed. I sat quietly, enjoying fluffy-crisp waffles and bacon that was drowning in real maple syrup, and waited for him to spill the information that I wanted so badly.
“Bulldog isn’t looking out for anybody but Bulldog,” he began. “Things were supposed to be a lot different. At least, he’d promised me that things would be different. What I’ve discovered, however, is that I’m constantly being manipulated and used. I was supposed to remain on the outside, just laundering money while playing the role of the gambler. He’d roped me into a few collections calls, which I went ahead and carried out. I’ve got some pretty good perks and all, you know, so I thought I’d pitch in a little bit. I’m to the point now where I’ve become his heavy. I can do it, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t particularly like doing what I had to do to Denny, you know?”
“You don’t think Denny deserved what he got? I mean, he owed a debt and had been given plenty of opportunities to make it right.” I had to deliver that line, just to see how he responded.
“Sure, he probably deserved it, but I just don’t like that I had to do it.”
I’d gotten the information that I needed and there wasn’t any point hammering away at it, so I pushed the conversation in a different direction. One thing had led to another and we’d ended up doing things to each other that would be stuck in my memory for a very long time.
I was working on pushing those memories out of my mind when I pulled up in front of the Hot Hound, swung my leg over my hog and started toward the door. There were two really strange feelings that struck me instantly as I pushed open the front door. I was apprehensive about having to see Bulldog and I was already missing Trevor.
Chapter Fourteen: Bulldog
“It’s about time you got here,” I said when Peach came through the office door. “I was expecting you to be here an hour ago.”
“Got stuck in traffic,” she retorted. “What’s with the ‘fuck you very much’ attitude?”
“None of your damned business,” I growled.
“Fine, let’s get this shit over with, then. I need a shower,” she retorted, offering me plenty of attitude of her own.
There were a couple of things that had soured my outlook that day. For one, I was feeling guilty as hell about what Dish and I had engaged in the night before. The fact that I was feeling like that had me pissed off. I’d screwed plenty of women whenever Peach was out of town, or in town, for that matter, and never felt the slightest tickle of guilt. The second was something that Dish had told me when we were resting between going at it. Her words flashed through my mind again.
“I’ve heard some talk,” Dish said.
“Yeah. Everybody hears talk,” I’d grumbled. I’d assumed that she was going to bring up that everyone thought that Peach and I were serious and that we’d be settling down and having kids together before long. I really didn’t want to hear about it.
“This is some heavy shit,” she said.
I knew Dish as someone who was pretty serious. Her reputation, though I didn’t really know it firsthand, was that she didn’t gossip about bullshit. The fact that she said that it was something heavy had already piqued my interest. “What’d you hear?”
“Sort of came through the grapevine that there is a cop that’s taken an interest in you and your involvement in some killings that took place in Salt Lake.”
“What?” I’d sat up immediately and looked down at her. There was no way in hell that I was connected to anything in Salt Lake. The Hell Dogs being tied to any operations in Salt Lake, let alone the killing of Denny and his two guards, was completely impossible to trace.
“They’re saying that somebody let it slip,” she said, casually.
“The fuck they did!” I exploded.
“Hey! Take it easy. Don’t kill the messenger. It’s just what I heard,” Dish responded, sitting up.
“Who told you this shit?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “It’s just the word around.”
“Guys in the club?” I asked. I couldn’t think of anybody who was trying to cut my feet out from under me or starting rumors. Initially, it didn’t dawn on me that it she had heard it anywhere but within the ranks.
“No. I just happened to hear it at work. One of those, ‘guess what I heard about the Hell Dogs’ things.”
I was really pissed when I heard that. How was it that people outside the club knew about something like that and nobody inside did? Why hadn’t TNT passed on that little bit of information? Did he know about it? I needed to ask him at the first opportunity I got. I lay back on the bed with my mind trying to sort out the dozens of questions that had already started. There weren’t any answers, but the questions had started to become less and less important as Dish, once again, started working her magic on my cock. Damn that girl knew how to suck a dick!
“So, can I go?” Peach asked.
The question had brought me back to the present and I felt an incredible surge of guilt from thinking about Dish’s skills while I was sitting in front of Peach. Jesus, I had to get her out of there or I’d go insane.
“Yeah. Here,” I replied, pushing her cut from one of the stacks of hundreds toward her.
“Thanks,” she said, scooping up the cash and heading directly toward the door. There was no teasing as she stepped through, but she did turn back for one quick parting shot. “You might want to work on that attitude a bit.”
“What? Are you my fucking mother now?” I shouted at a closed door.
Still fuming, I pulled out my cell phone and pushed the speed dial button for TNT. I’d already done that a dozen times earlier and gotten no response. That wasn’t improving my mood either.
“Jesus,” he said, when he finally answered my call.
“What the fuck?” I said. “I’ve been trying to call you all fuckin’ morning.”
“So I noticed,” he returned in a casual, smartass tone.
“What do you know about this shit in Salt Lake?” I plunged ahead, not in the mood for any sort of greeting or small talk.
“What shit in Salt Lake?” he asked. He was a hell of an actor, because for a moment, I actually believed that he didn’t know what was going on.
“I heard it through the grapevine that I was being investigated in connection with what you did in Salt Lake,” I growled.
“That’s the first I’ve heard of any investigation,” he responded.
“Oh yeah?” I snapped. “Word is, someone in Reno tipped off the cops about my involvement. I only know a few people in Reno and only one of them has any knowledge that anything happened in Salt Lake.”
“You think I set the cops on you? Why? What reason would I have for sending the cops in your direction?”
“Probably to take the pressure off yourself.”
“But there wasn’t any pressure on me,” he replied. “As far as I know, they are conducting a local investigation and not looking beyond Salt Lake for answers.”
“So, you do know about the investigation.” If he didn’t know anything about what was going on then why did he know that they were keeping the investigation local?
“Just what little bit I’ve picked up on the news,” he responded.
The problem with accusing TNT of being a snitch was the fact that I really didn’t have any solid evidence. The son of a bitch was so cool that he could probably look you straight in the eyes, lie and never even flinch. I didn’t have anything to go on really, just Dish’s rumor, and it was a rumor that couldn’t be tracked. TNT seemed genuinely confused by my accusation and I was beginning to wonder if I had jumped the gun, but I damned sure wasn’t going to apologize for it.
“I’m keeping an eye on you,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “If you’re setting me up, it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
“Look, you arrogant son of a bitch…” It was the first time I’d ever heard TNT lose his cool. “If I have a problem with you, I’ll come straight to the source and take care of it myself.”
“You’d be lucky to…” I was talking into a dead line. The bastard had hung up before I could respond. Fuming at having been threatened and then hung up on, it was all that I could do not to call him back and lay into him all over again.
“Thinks he can take care of me, does he?” I growled to the empty room.
I got up from my chair and stomped down the hall to the bar. “Zane, I need a fuckin’ bottle and I need it now!”
There was nobody else in the bar, so I went ahead and kicked a chair out from under one of the tables and sank into it. I was still pissed, but I couldn’t stay that way. I had to get control of myself, figure out how to substantiate the rumor and figure out if and how TNT had implicated me. After a couple of shots, I was starting to get myself under control. After three more, I began to realize that I had shown my hand too quickly. I was so fucked up in my head after spending the night with Dish and feeling guilty that I hadn’t been thinking clearly.