Have Gun, Will Travel (The Bare Bones MC Book 5) (18 page)

“The beds of subs,” he admitted. “But mostly generic hotel rooms. It’s not all fun and games on the road. Most of it’s work. I can do that work here. P and E’s a booming tourist town with all the vortexes and hippies and woo-woo junk. Anyway. You’d do me the honor of wearing this patch. Only you have nothing to attach it to right at the moment.”

Her face was open and full of happiness when she looked back at the patch, then up at him. “I think I would like to accept this patch.”

He had no choice but to kiss her then, a strange sensation filling his chest. Bee brought to him an odd feeling he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was…security, a sense of domestic bliss. Her faith in him was growing like a flower, inspiring him to change his life. Maybe she had lost all faith in her religion—he still didn’t know what had happened to her—but he saw a different type of faith blooming in her now. Maybe she needed something worldly to believe in for her hope to flourish again. Sax would be glad to be part of her newfound hope. He’d never been anyone’s rock before. Being wanted and needed would encourage him to stick around, maybe.

The doorknob rattled and people pounded on the heavy metal, making it sound like they were in an echoing jail cell. “Open up in there!” It sounded like Wolf Glaser and a few other guys. “You can’t just hog the game room, you know!”

“Yeah!” yelled someone else, maybe Bobo Segrist, former Prospect. “We don’t care if you’re banging Taylor Swift in there—we need to bet on a game of pool!”

Sighing, Sax got to his feet, putting his cock away with regrets. “Keep your pants on!” He helped Bee to her feet. It took longer to find the pieces of her clothing he’d tossed without care. When put back together, she looked tousled, with that just-fucked look. Sax tucked the patch into the top pocket of her plaid shirt, and she looked pleased and coy.

When he opened the door, about five brothers piled in.

“Oh, hey,” said Wolf, eager to grab the best pool stick, the one that wasn’t cracked or warped. “You should know. Baron Funkhauser was just arrested at The Drawing Room. Hey, hey, asshole! That stick’s got
my
name on it!”

Wolf tried to make a desperate getaway, but Sax had a handful of his leather cut in his fist. “Not so fast, Sergeant Sphincter of the Dirt Patrol.”

The humorous name apparently gave Wolf Glaser pause for thought, and he stopped straining so hard to release himself. “What? What?”

“Now it’s
Funkhauser
being carted off? What was the charge?”

When he released the Prospect, Wolf smoothed out his cut. “Sock Monkey was the only one at The Drawing Board when the feds came, guys from the ATF. Of course Sock Monkey tried to stop them, but they said they had a warrant, a RICO indictment just like with Panhead. They gave him a copy of some paper, and shoved Funkhauser into an unmarked vehicle, you know, one of those armored SUVs.”

Sax jammed his hands onto his hips. “What the fuck? And no one’s concerned about this? Leo’s downstairs slapping chicks on the ass like nothing happened?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about ‘like nothing happened.’ Leo seems like he’d slap chicks’ asses if the hangar was falling down around him.”

“Yeah,” fumed Sax, “and with his wife standing right there watching. Listen, keep an eye on Bee, would you? I know we’ve got guards and I’m not worried, but just don’t let her out of your sight. Grab an old lady if she wants to go to the can.” Hurriedly, he kissed Bee’s forehead. “You all right with Wolf?”

“Yes,” she slurred, still under the influence. “Wolf’s a doll.”

Sax told Wolf, “Did you hear that? Those are some mighty words to live up to.” With that, Sax barreled down the hallway.

He didn’t get far before he crashed right into Fred Birdseye, freshly minted Veep of the Flag chapter. Sax had known him from fish fries over the decades, but Birdseye was so new to Flagstaff that Sax had barely had time to greet him, much less have a conversation.

Birdseye seemed to want a conversation now.

He was three sheets to the wind, as usual, gripping a flat pint bottle of tequila. Sax didn’t normally trust anyone who was perpetually drunk, but Birdseye seemed to be a maintenance drinker—a guy who drank round the clock and never seemed drunk. Now he appeared to have an urgent issue to tell Sax.

“I don’t want to be Veep anymore, Sax. You’ve got to go to bat for me with Leo. You’re the fucking logical choice for Veep since you’re his older brother.”

“Why don’t you want to be Veep?”

“It’s too fucking
dangerous
, Sax. Did you hear what just happened to Funkhauser, after what happened to Panhead? They’re building some kind of RICO case against us. That stands for racketeering and—well, it means that
anyone
in the club is liable to be arrested next on the flimsiest grounds possible. Anyone, until we figure out where the fucking leak is, who’s the fucking snitch who couldn’t hold his mud!”

“I couldn’t fucking agree more. I’ve got my suspicions but I’m far from having any proof. I never did understand why Leo didn’t make Harte Veep—”

“Yeah, why he chose a no one from the Tucson chapter. I wondered the same thing, Sax. Harte’s his only fucking kid. Why not him?” Birdseye’s face drained of its color when he contemplated his next words. “
Because Leo knew the next guy would be going up the river?”

“Look, I’ll have a fucking talk with Leo, not that it’ll do any good. Is he about to admit to me if he’s up to something? I’m the last person he’d admit anything to. And how is this benefitting him, anyway? What’s he getting out of it? The blowback is too great if he was the rat.”

Birdseye intoned morbidly, “Not if he was doing it as part of a deal he struck with the ATF to turn in his men in exchange for immunity. Remember, Leo was arrested several months ago driving a truck full of Russian ladies, but nothing ever came of it? Funny how that happened.”

Clapping Birdseye on the shoulder, Sax continued down the inner stairwell. Things were sure turning into a massive clusterfuck. Having Bee, patched as his property, seemed more and more like the only stable thing in his life. He had no idea why the concept of stability was suddenly so important to him. It had even occurred to him a couple of times lately that he might want another kid. That idea was terrifying, of course, but his mind kept returning to it time and time again.

The first person he met at the bottom of the stairs inside the hangar was Lulu Saxonberg, Leo’s wife. With her lustrous bottle-red hair piled on top of her head, she wore heels so high she teetered when she walked. But she was still a fine piece of ass after all these decades, keeping herself fit and trim. She was the perfect Prez’s old lady. Sax had always wondered how Leo had scored with her. He was such a jerk. Lulu was so wise, so mature, so open about her feelings.

“Sax. We need to talk. Listen, let’s go over here behind this toilet trailer.”

“Sure. I heard what happened to Funkhauser.” Sax assumed that was what Lulu wanted to discuss.

“Yes, that’s horrible, but it’s not what I had in mind…”

On their way to the trailer, parked inside the hangar for people too squeamish to use the port-a-potties outside, Lytton raised a hand to Sax.

“Hey. Wanted to let you know. My buddy Saul Goldblum is going to make an unscheduled, unannounced inspection to your salon tomorrow.”

Sax nodded, pleased. “Good. Thanks, Lytton. Now, what’s up, Lulu?” It was always nerve-wracking being around Lulu. Sax preferred to keep his distance, and that was usually possible. He didn’t often just happen to run into her. She was at the heart of his decades-old feud with Leo, and it made him nervous when that emotion bubbled so close to the surface.

She crossed her arms beneath the shelf of her breasts. “It’s Harte, Sax. I know you don’t like me to come to you with issues about him. But listen. I know you’d be a lot more open-minded about this than Leo.” Chagrin shot through her face. “Sax, Leo would
murder
Harte if he found out, and I don’t know what to do!”

Sax was starting to comprehend the situation. “Are you referring by any chance to Dayton Navarro?”

Lulu exhaled all in one whoosh. “Yes! Yes, how did you know? So you know what I’m talking about then. Is this just a fucking
phase
or something? Harte has always been so handy with the ladies. And imagine what Leo will do when he finds out he’s not going to have any grandkids?” Her hands flew to her face, covering everything but her eyes with her long, manicured nails.

Sax risked putting his hands on her shoulders. No one could see them from here, unless they stumbled around the wrong side of the trailer. “I saw them earlier in the dispatcher’s office, ah, going at it. I didn’t say a word because I was in a rush. Also, like you said…Leo. Last time I stepped in when Harte got that girl pregnant, well, that was the last time I saw the inside of the Flagstaff chapel, to say the fucking least. You know how Leo doesn’t want me parenting Harte.”

“But the fact is,” Lulu sobbed into her hands, her voice muffled, “he’s your
son
, Sax! Leo can’t ignore that forever! Just because I’m still married legally to Leo and Harte is legally our son on paper”—she removed her hands from her face, but her voice became even more hushed—“doesn’t mean you stop loving Harte and stop wanting to parent him. I say have a private, confidential talk with Harte.”

Sax whispered too. “And say what, Lulu? I don’t think it’s right for him to be gay?”

He could understand Lulu’s frustration. “Oh, I don’t know! Remind him that this is a man’s world, that not only Leo but probably every single other club member will bury him alive if they find out he’s…he’s…” Lulu couldn’t even bring herself to say the word, covering her mouth again.

Sax said it for her. “Gay?” He’d been around the block a few times. Attending BDSM clubs, one saw a fair amount of gay stuff. It didn’t faze Sax anymore, although there probably had been a time when he’d been like Leo. Now he knew it was just another way of being. “Listen. He did get that girl pregnant, and we’ve known him to push up on many, many young ladies. Maybe he’s just experimenting, Lulu.”

“‘Experimenting’? Sax, he’s twenty-four years old! If he was just ‘experimenting,’ I’m sure he would have ‘experimented’ before the age of twenty-four! Leo’s going to have an absolute
coronary
, Sax. If Harte chooses this fucked-up path, and I don’t see how he can, Leo’s going to have him iced for not giving him any grandchildren!”

Sax bristled at the fucking emphasis always placed on Leo’s grandchildren.
Big fucking deal
if Leo didn’t have any more progeny. What about
Sax
? What about his
own
progeny? Didn’t he count for shit? For twenty-four years he’d raged inwardly, not being allowed to tell anyone that Harte was his son, how proud he was of him, how much advice he wanted to shower on the boy. How he wanted to take him on some of his road trips, go to the shooting range with him, take him fishing. None of that had been allowed because Leo was too deathly afraid Sax would get too close, too comfortable with the boy and let on his real identity.

There were times Sax felt like doing just that.

Now it was all about whether
Leo
had grandchildren? Just because he was, what? Prez of a fucking motorcycle club? That meant Sax was just chopped liver? He’d lived with a woman for a couple years in Chicago. Anna had become pregnant and they had plans to marry. But when she miscarried, she became unglued, absolutely rocked to the core by her own insufficiency as a woman. Her depression became so deep Sax couldn’t leave her alone. Eventually he got Anna’s sister to take her in. Anna had no more interest in lust-fueled love affairs. And that was Sax’s one chance at having a child of his own.

He snapped, “Maybe Harte could just leave the club, you ever thought of that? That new gay club Turk Blackburn formed in Lake Havasu, the Bent—”

“The Bent Zealots? Oh Lord, Sax, you’ve
got
to be kidding! Leo would take out Harte personally before he’d let him join the Zealots. He doesn’t even let those guys come around our clubhouse, even though Turk was a long-standing member of the mother chapter, and Lock Singer was an Assassin of Youth.”

“What if Leo wasn’t here to complain?”

“What if—
what?
Sax, I don’t know what you’re referring to, but I don’t think I fucking
want
to know. Listen. You of all people know how important progeny is to Leo.”

Yes. It was why Sax had agreed to go along with Leo’s plan to impregnate Lulu to begin with. Leo’s boys weren’t swimmers, they had tried for years with no success, and the first shot of Sax’s super sperm to Lulu’s eggs had done the trick. Leo was burning up with jealousy on many different fronts, and that was one of them. He was shooting blanks while Sax, so the nurse said, had the sperm of an eighteen-year-old.

Once Lulu had given birth, everything changed. Leo became overly protective, secretive, going out of his way to affirm his status as The Father. The brothers had been thick as thieves before, and now it was different. Things went downhill, to the point where Leo was exiling Sax out of fear someone might pick up on their covert pact. Leo had become
obsessed
with keeping his secret. The more obsessed Leo became, the more it irritated Sax, although he’d agreed to the deception to begin with. It just hadn’t seemed like a big deal, donating sperm for a good cause. Now Sax realized he’d made that decision flippantly, off the cuff. It mattered.

Sax sighed heavily. “Yes. I’m painfully familiar with how important progeny is to Leo. I’ll talk to him. Have you seen him around in the past half hour?”

“Well, he
was
talking to Papa Ewey and Breakiron behind the stage. But then some guy from a club I’ve never heard of came, and they went into that electrician’s shack, you know the one, it used to be full of UXOs, whatever those are.”

Sax knew the unexploded ordnance shed. It was out past where the music stage was, out in the revetment area. “What was the name of the club?” He imagined Lulu would know the names of every club. It was weird to see colors that no one recognized.

“Oh, the something something, I don’t know. The Skeleton Screechers, I’m not sure, it had the word ‘skeleton’ in it, I think.”