Authors: Winter Hayles
Caine
Caine drove straight to the Banished Souls club house, which was located only several blocks away from Booty Bumps. It was a fenced compound wedged in between two empty warehouses, which were also owned by the Club.
As Caine pulled up to the gate, he noticed Basher standing across the street talking with a couple of other Hang Arounds. Upon seeing Caine, Basher stopped talking and watched him.
What's his problem? Caine thought to himself. He was feeling agitated with the sudden summons to the Club House. A meeting was not planned, so his apprehension was through the roof.
A Prospect nodded at Caine and rolled the gate back. Caine drove in slowly and parked at his assigned spot. At least at the Club House, the gang had half decent security protocols. Talking business within its wall felt relatively safe, but you still had to be careful.
But in Caine's mind, it beat all the business chatter, and dealings at Booty Bumps, which always made him nervous.
He went over to the Club House's main entrance, which was a reenforced steel door. As he approached, the door swung outward and Pacer nodded at him. The Prospect held out a plastic tray, which was full of cell phones. Caine dropped his in. Another safety precaution.
As he entered, Caine had a premonition, and turned.
Through the rolling gate, he saw Basher. He was no longer watching Caine, but instead hurried over to a parked car, quickly got in, and drove out of sight.
Caine decided that the activities of a lowly Hang Around, let alone an extremely stupid one, was beneath him, and went inside.
He passed a large bar area. This was not for the public to enjoy, like Booty Bumps, but for Banished Souls, and certain guests, to sit around and get drunk. It looked like an overcharged sports bar with hug monitors for watching sports and porn, as well as high end bar furniture and fixtures. Everywhere the walls were lined with photos of club members and club activities. Occasionally, there was the full patched vest, or jacket of a dead club member.
Caine ignored this and walked into a side hallway. Here, Paul, stood waiting for him outside a closed oak door. Beyond would be the official meeting area for the club. Full Patch members only.
Paul nodded. He was holding a detection wand. Caine knew what was expected of him and held out his arms.
Paul ran the wand over him. It was forbidden to bring any weapons past the oak door. And it was an almost guaranteed death sentence to bring any electronic equipment inside, as any could be hacked into recording conversations.
Caine had even heard of different clubs refusing to let members with pace-makers into secure meetings.
Satisfied Caine was clean, Paul knocked on the oak door three times.
As they waited, Caine asked the Prospect, "So, how did that other thing go?" He already knew the run with the video game consoles went off without a hitch.
Paul offered a tight smile. "Smooth. No surprises."
"Good," Caine said. But he could tell Paul was apprehensive. Maybe he knew what was waiting for Caine beyond the door.
As if on cue the oak door swung open. T-Bone was on the other side. "Took you long enough," the big man quipped.
Caine entered, and T-Bone closed and locked the door. This area looked like a smaller version of the bar room he just passed. Only there were no monitors, and the regalia on the walls was a lot more sparse. This was a place for talking business, not messing around.
Caine was shocked to see that the place was packed with other full patch members of the Banished Souls. There were even a few from other Banished Souls Chapters from other towns. There looked to be close to two dozen people here.
"What the hell?" Caine asked T-Bone, as he took in the spectacle. With so many members in one place, and unscheduled, it could only mean one thing. Trouble.
"Yeah, I know," T-Bone said.
When T-Bone didn't offer more Caine asked, "So, did someone die or something?" He felt totally clueless, and hated being so far out of the Club loop.
"No," T-Bone said, almost somber. "Not yet."
"What do you mean?"
"Feathers have been ruffled and strings have been pulled," T-Bone said and nodded over toward the other side of the chamber.
Caine looked and saw Grunt. He was standing and chatting with a small handful of other members. It took a moment to realize Grunt was talking to them about Caine as they all kept looking over in his direction.
"Don't tell me," Caine said, exasperated.
"Yup," T-Bone said. "The idiot is making a move."
It was no secret that Grunt wanted better status within the Club. Every time he had tried he failed. Laughably so in some cases. It was a wonder he hadn't been discharged yet. Which in Biker parlance meant stripped of his patch, beaten and tossed into the street.
Yet here he was, the Club Idiot as some would say behind his back, about to do something that would most likely accelerate that process.
But why is he so keen on me? Caine thought.
Just then Uncle stepped out from the back where he'd been talking to another group.
"Okay, shut up!" Uncle snarled.
Two dozen hardened bikers stopped talking almost immediately. Such was the fear and respect they had for Uncle.
Uncle said, "As you know, any patched member can call an emergency meeting. Usually it's done in times of war. But since we are not currently at war with anyone, I'd ask the member who called this meeting to explain his reason for this."
The Club President turned and looked to Grunt. "You're up, Grunt."
Caine and T-bone were shaking their heads. What was this guy thinking?
As Grunt walked to the middle of the room there was some chuckling from the crowd. Some thought the Club Idiot was about to make a spectacle of himself. Grunt ignored them.
"My fellow brothers," Grunt said. "I called this meeting because of a dire circumstance has arisen."
T-Bone whispered, "Someone has been reading a dictionary."
Grunt strutted about, almost like a peacock. "As most of you may not been aware, I was given the green light to make inroads with some of the other Clubs. Laying the groundwork for potentially lucrative deals. Something we all know we need."
This brought some mumbling and nods of agreement.
"One of these Clubs really wanted to deal with us, and I was within reach of a tentative agreement that would have been worth a lot of money to many of you here."
Now Caine realized where this was going. He started to worry.
"Who's the Club?" someone called out.
Grunt blinked, as if this caused him to lose his train of thought. "The Krimson Klowns."
Now this got everyone's attention. The Klowns were neutral to the Banished Souls, but they were known to have bigger connections to the underworld than the Souls, as well as much deeper pockets.
Grunt grinned at this. He knew this was something they would want very much.
"But now that potential deal is on ice, because one person, one member has gone and sabotaged the entire thing."
Caine was now on full alert. "Oh, crap," he said.
"And not only that," Grunt continued in full form. "He has gone out of his way to try and start a war with the Klowns!"
"Who is this asshole?" said one of the members Grunt had been standing with. A plant.
Grunt turned and with a dramatic flourish pointed directly at Caine. "Him!"
All eyes turned to look at Caine.
"Well, this just got interesting," T-Bone said with a poor attempt at levity.
Caine walked over to confront Grunt. "That is a load of complete crap, and you know it!"
Almost instantly Uncle appeared and physically blocked Caine, stopping him in his tracks. "Now wait a second, Caine. You know how this works. He gets his say and then you do."
Caine backed down, but he was beyond furious.
Uncle looked to Grunt to continue, almost begrudgingly.
Grunt sneered at Caine. "This member not only confronted a high ranking member of the Krimson Klowns, he then took that Klown's Old Lady."
This actually brought some laughter which Grunt didn't expect. He quickly added. "Unless something is done to fix this situation, there will be no deal with the Klowns."
This made the crowd sober up. If it had to do with money, it got priority. And if Grunt had made a good enough case that Caine was responsible for them losing money, or potential money, he was in serious trouble.
Uncle raised a hand, then looked to Caine. "Say your peace, Caine."
Caine tried to maintain his cool. He turned to address the group. "This idiot has gone and twisted around a situation to his own benefit. We had a member of the Krimson Klowns sneak into Booty Bumps uninvited. He took off with one of our dancers, who use to be his Old Lady. She isn't his Old Lady, not anymore."
He glanced at Uncle for permission to mention one important detail. Uncle sensed what it was and nodded once. Grunt looked alarmed at this but could say nothing.
"I, too, was closing a deal. In fact I got a hand shake. With the Dark Ones."
This brought more rumblings. Like the Krimson Klowns, the Dark Ones were a highly sought after business partner.
"But this rogue Krimson Klown was making us look bad. Intruding on our territory, and snatching one of our women. And the Dark One saw this. If I had done nothing, it would have made us look weak. And as you all know, that kind of thing could not be allowed."
There was nods of approval, and general rumblings of assent.
"I don't think there is a member here that would have let that situation go on. So I put a stop to it."
Grunt now looked apoplectic. Perhaps he just didn't think Caine would have had a chance to say anything, let alone play on one of the Bikers major laws: Don't show weakness.
"The Klown was not hurt. He even said that it was a personal matter, and not business. So after we made it clear he couldn't pull that stunt again, we let him go."
Caine glared at Grunt. "It was a personal matter, and had nothing to do with our business, or Klown business."
Caine sensed that he had mollified the group, to a degree. He had cast enough doubt on Grunt's serious accusations. Which left the other members to think on Grunt's motivations.
Uncle stepped forward. "Okay, I've heard enough. Because this involves outside Clubs, this gets bumped up to upper management to decide what to do."
There is almost always an upper echelon in the biker gang culture. Usually, old time members who now have enough influence to work on an almost national, and sometimes, international levels. Lower members usually are not privy to what kind of business dealing they are up to. Particularly if it might involve other gangs. To prevent an incident, any inter-gang deals gets run by these older members. The Upper Management.
Uncle said, "Now I'm not sure if this was even worth calling an emergency meeting." It was Uncle's turn to glare at Grunt. "And if Upper Management wants to punish the accusing member of this nonsense, he'll know it."