Authors: Carmella Jones
Chapter Twenty-Seven: TNT
Was any of it real? That question went through my mind several hundred times and I answered it differently each time, depending on my mood. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure what to think about having been betrayed the way that Leila had betrayed me. The bigger problem, however, was that my heart believed that it was real. I’d felt the way we connected on a deeper level. Those things don’t always make rational sense.
I balanced what she told me against what I knew and what I’d seen happen. There was one conclusion that kept popping up: It had been a ballsy move. It didn’t hurt that Leila looked the way that she did and got away with all sorts of things because nobody would ever believe that underneath that gorgeous exterior was the mind of an engineer and a Marine.
It had taken little to get things started. A couple of hints that the cops were looking into a murder, which I’d described in detail for her and Bulldog in Vegas. She’d probably seen her opportunity that night. Recalling our conversation over waffles, I realized that she’d drawn out the reason for the tension between Bulldog and me and figured out how to exploit that. When I’d sent Taylor to start snooping around, I had reinforced the paranoia that Bulldog must have already been feeling. I wasn’t sure how she had pushed things in Bulldog’s direction. I probably didn’t want to know. If that was true and he was going to take most of the heat, then I was in an excellent position to either break away and disappear or take things over for myself.
When I was completely honest with myself, I knew that I really didn’t want to be in it anymore. The casinos, the money, the parties and the women had lost their luster. With Leila, I had started to think about a normal life with a home and a family. I’d put enough back from what I’d won to buy a decent place and live comfortably for a while. I’d probably have to get a job in order to keep up, but a regular job didn’t seem too bad to me at that time. Maybe it was the perfect opportunity for me to get out of my own mess.
What I really wanted, when it all came down to it, was Leila. She’d betrayed me, but I loved her anyway. I knew that Leila was sharp enough and had the guts to finish what she’d started. I knew that she could have kept playing me and told me that Bulldog had put her up to it. She had held all of the cards and had folded rather than finishing the game. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was enough to make me believe that it might have been real after all.
And then it hit me. If I had figured it out, then Bulldog would figure it out. He would put it all together, and even put together that she and I had been together. When he did get all of the pieces in place, Leila didn’t stand a chance. Still battling in my mind over her betrayal, I knew that I had to get her out. I could make a collection run, pay off Taylor and get the ball rolling. I’d probably have to pay double for the two of us, but I wasn’t going to spend my own money anyway. It would piss Bulldog off, no doubt, but we’d be long gone before he figured it out.
I’d made up my mind and was about to head out the door to start collecting the money that would pay for my and Leila’s freedom when my cell phone rang. The caller ID revealed that it was Bulldog. I considered ignoring it and then realized that he might tip me off on what he knew if I answered the call. I pressed the button to connect the call, started to speak, but heard his voice start in immediately.
“I need you here, and I need you here yesterday. We’ve both got a big problem and there’s only one way for both of us to get out of it,” he said.
“Alright, well…” I realized that I was speaking to a dead line. Bulldog had already figured things out. There wasn’t any time to waste. Leila would already be in danger and I had a long ride to make in order to save her. Long ride or not, I was out the door and on my Road King in less than three minutes.
Bulldog’s call had brought something home to me instantly. As long as he was still in action, Leila was not safe. Even if he hadn’t figured it out yet, he would, and the moment he did, he wouldn’t hesitate to take her out. I could go to Leila first or I could take Bulldog out of the picture. Since he’d already set things up for me, I might as well deal with him first.
The thought occurred to me that I was riding right into a trap, but I really didn’t have a choice. I’d have walked into hell and back to save Leila. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time I’d walked into a trap, but I vowed that if I came out of it alive, it would be the last trap I ever walked into. The lifestyle simply wasn’t worth the risks.
That long ride gave me plenty of time to think, maybe more than I really needed. Most of that thinking was about Leila and how to get her to somewhere where neither Bulldog nor anyone else could touch her. I also worked on what I would say and how I would say it.
How exactly did one say, “You lied to me, but I still want you back.” After a couple of hours of belaboring that one detail, I finally gave it up. It wouldn’t be the words that would be important, it would be the actions.
As I got closer to my objective, I switched my thoughts over to tactical ones. Bulldog hadn’t told me where to meet him. He hadn’t needed to. Whenever he had called me to meet him in the past, it had been at the very same place: an abandoned Spanish-style, ranch house, reminiscent of old California, that was twenty miles out of town. It was down a dirt road that could easily be watched by whoever was inside the loft of the barn. They’d see me coming well before I was in range to do any damage. That meant that I was going to have to come in a different way. It was going to take longer to get in there using the cover of the hills on either side and the brush along the valley floor.
If it was a trap, then I wanted to arrive without anyone knowing that I was there. That was the only way I was going to be able to study things out and slip in quietly. If it wasn’t a trap, then it would just be a pleasant surprise for Bulldog and whoever happened to be there with him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Bulldog
The interrogation hadn’t been a pleasant experience for me. I’d worked my way through it, but questions had hinted that they knew more than they ought to have known. Worse yet, Sal hadn’t been present while they were doing it, which, in hindsight, was probably better because wringing his fucking neck in front of them wouldn’t have made things go well for me. In the end, most of what they were doing was fishing. They didn’t have anything to charge me with, though they were dancing around the edges of several. I was still a free man when I walked out, but I wasn’t a happy one.
The entire time that I was at the station, Sal had made himself scarce, but I was definitely not through talking with him. As I stepped over my bike to leave the parking lot, I made a quick call. Dialing Sal’s number, I said just one word when he answered the call. “Now.”
Sal and I had a prearranged meeting place. We’d set it up when he’d started accepting cash from me. I didn’t have to tell him where to meet me, just when. I arrived at the spot in the back of an abandoned auto parts building and waited for him to show up. I pulled up on the false bottom of the right saddlebag on my bike, took out the .357 that I kept there and tucked it into the waistband of my jeans.
While I was waiting, I started piecing everything together. It was the first time that I had really had a chance to consider how Peach was involved in it all. As I started to fit her into the puzzle, it began to come together. The reason there had been no evidence to support the rumor that I was being investigated was because I hadn’t been. Peach had made it up and used Dish to pass it along to me.
Had Peach tried to tell me that herself, I would never have believed it, or I would accused her of starting something right away. A one-night stand with Dish, which Peach had probably arranged, had been the perfect opportunity to get under my skin. Since she was in Reno, I never considered a connection. The other perfect part of that little plan was the fact that she knew that the guilt of having screwed her best friend would have blinded me to the scheme.
Rumors weren’t enough to keep it running. She had to have me and TNT at odds with each other to keep us pissed off. We were already experiencing some tension between us, which she had probably picked up on in Vegas and taken advantage of that. Even that wouldn’t have been enough to keep me paranoid, so she had to bring in Sal. That would have been an easy trick, since Sal could barely keep his dick in his pants whenever he was around her as it was.
Whether Sal or Peach brought in Detective Taylor to push me a little closer to the edge I wasn’t sure. After the interrogation that I’d just gone through, I wondered if Detective Taylor hadn’t been legit and uncovered some things. Sal had been uncomfortable when Detective Taylor was in the office talking to me, and he didn’t seem to be acquainted with him, but then, maybe Sal was a good actor.
Regardless of how it was all put together, I had the two who had been the major players figured out, and I had TNT on his way too. All I needed to do was get them all into one place and take them all out. The first two would be easy, but I’d have to arrange one hell of a surprise for TNT. Fortunately, I was the president of a motorcycle club that was only open to active duty and retired Marines. I made a quick call.
“Sup, Boss?” the voice answered.
“I need you and some guys out at the ranch, pronto,” I replied.
“Short notice. I can get you two or three good ones, maybe a couple more half-assed ones.”
“Just get good ones,” I said. “I’ll be out there in about an hour.”
“Gotcha.” He disconnected the call.
I had just finished the call when Officer Sal O’Neal pulled up in his unmarked sedan. I’d already figured out how to play things with him.
“Jesus, Bulldog,” he said holding up his hands and walking toward me as soon as he was out of the car. “I didn’t know they were going to take you through all of that. My guess is that Detective Taylor must have…”
He cut off whatever he was going to say when he saw the pistol in my hand pointing directly at his chest.
“What the hell is that for?”
“That’s to encourage you to make a phone call for me,” I replied.
“A phone call? To who?” His eyes were wide. He definitely hadn’t expected that turn of events. “You can’t do this, Bulldog. I told you, we’ll get this straightened out, but you have to keep your head and not do anything stupid.”
“Just shut up and make the call or I’ll drill you right now.”
“Okay. Okay. Just calm down. Who do you want me to call?”
“Peach.”
“Oh, now, come on, Bulldog. She had nothing to do with any of this,” he pleaded.
“I don’t suppose you had anything to do with it either,” I replied, moving the barrel to his right temple. “Those interviewers knew way too many things that only you or Peach would know.”
“I told you, Detective Taylor…”
“Fuck Detective Taylor. I want you and Peach in one place so that I can put together this whole story, or I’ll scatter your brains all over this alley, got it?”
“Okay. Fine. I’ll call her, just relax. We can work this out.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket.
“You better do that real carefully,” I said.
“Just reaching for my cell phone,” he said, drawing it out of his pocket and holding it up between his fingers for me to see.
“What do you want me to tell her?”
“Tell her that you want to meet her. Tell her that it’s important. Tell her whatever you need to tell her to get her down here,” I ordered, pulling the gun away from his temple, but keeping it trained on him in very plain sight. “You better be careful about what you say.”
I wasn’t impressed by the fact that he didn’t ask me for Peach’s number. I hadn’t volunteered the information because I knew that it would be an opportunity for me to see how well connected the two of them had become. The fact that he had her in his phone was evidence enough that I had guessed right about the whole thing. There was no reason for Peach to have given him her number. He could have saved it from a call, but there was no reason for Peach to call him either.
I only heard Sal’s end of the conversation, but I could guess at what was being said on the other end.
“I know I’m not supposed to call you.”
He paused a moment.
“This is important. I’ve got to talk to you now.”
He listened again.
“No. It can’t wait. Trust me. This is huge.”
Another pause.
“No, not there. You need to meet me behind the auto parts store.”
There was another pause.
“Okay, fine, we’ll meet at the K-Mart parking lot.”
He looked at me and shrugged.
I nodded that it was okay. I needed her to feel safe about the meeting or she wouldn’t show.
“She’s on her way,” he said. “This is a really bad idea, Bulldog.”
“Yeah. I know. All of this can be cleared up if I just keep my head.” I reached inside of his jacket, took out his pistol and tucked it into my waistband. I motioned for him to move over toward the driver’s seat in the car. “You better clear all of the other weapons out of there and toss them in the back seat.”
I kept my gun trained on his back where he could feel it. “Any sudden moves will buy you a bullet.” He came up with three weapons that were concealed in different places and within easy reach of the driver’s seat. He tossed them in the back seat.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“Well, let me put it to you this way. From here on out, any sudden moves and I’ll scatter your brains all over the place.” I kept the gun on his head, opened the back door and slid into the seat. I lay across the seat and kept my pistol pointed at his head. “You understand that I will not hesitate to shoot you, right?”
“Right,” he replied.
“Let’s go.”