The Bare Bones (The Bare Bones MC) (25 page)

Ford said, “You know, there’s a whole line of what ifs that go along with that, Speed. What if Riker wouldn’t have forced you to OD on peyote in the first place?”

Duji said, “What if you wouldn’t have seen those Furries yiffing?”

“Exactly,” said Ford. “There’s a whole raft of what ifs, and you were at home with your arm in a sling the whole time Cropper was pulling this shit. How were you to know? He lied to your sister to manipulate her, to use her, and that’s not in the slightest your fault. Now. What do we do about this?”

One by one, Ford looked at the men he’d grown up with. Duji, who was so dapper and suave when he was a kid, now resembled a beaten-up Al Pacino. Tuzigoot, with his waist-length flowing locks, was starting to look like an escapee from a Venezuelan prison. Speed was their newest, youngest blood. Ford had been thinking about this lately, so he said, “We have to hustle some of the bitter, nasty old poisonous blood out of this club, and I think it’s obvious who needs to go. We need to start patching some of the newer more reliable prospects in here, like Kneecap, Wild Man, and August.”

There was a murmur of approval.

“I’m making my move. This doesn’t need to involve any of you. This is strictly on me, my decision. But I’m not going to be Veep in a club where I have absolutely no respect for the President. Brothers don’t turn on each other, so this stays in the rearview. Not one more word about it.”

Turk cleared his throat. “Just to be sure about this. You’re going to take him out.”

Ford nodded. “I don’t want P&E becoming a war zone. We stole the tunnel from the Baal’s Minions so that’s payback from them. Riker’s just a crazy motherfucker, so let him learn by Cropper’s example. Cropper has to go. Let’s put it up for a vote.”

“I understand your anger,” said Tuzigoot. “But Cropper and I go way back. I can’t authorize this. We’ve been together since short pants days. We’ve got too much history. I know he betrayed you, Torino, but this is an extreme reaction.”

Ford couldn’t believe it. Tuzigoot was a “Filthy Few” as well and had never hesitated to bury anyone. “Ziggy?”

“I’m with you, Ford. This isn’t the first time he’s fucked over one of our old ladies. It’s happened to me, to Duji, even to Tuzigoot. That guy’s out of control and needs to be put down like a rabid skunk. His business decisions lately haven’t been the best, either.”

Tuzigoot said, “But that’s no reason to bury someone, Zig. Most CEOs wouldn’t be in business if that was a good reason.”

“That’s hardly the
only
reason,” Ford protested.

Tuzigoot held up a hand. “I know, I know. He’s pretty much committed the most unforgiveable act. I just can’t give the green light on this. I say we remove him in good standing. It’s just time for him to step down.”

The vote was divided. Ford, Turk, Ziggy, and Gollywow were all for burying Cropper, period. Tuzigoot, Duji, Faux Pas and surprisingly Speed were all for removing him in good standing. Tuzigoot even wanted to use the word “retire” regarding Cropper.

Ford was so full of rage he couldn’t see straight. He couldn’t even listen to the traitor’s justifications for why Cropper shouldn’t be buried. He couldn’t force his wishes upon the entire club. If it wasn’t unanimous, nothing could be done.

Ford shouted, “He should at least be out bad. I’m not going to watch him walking about Pure and Easy flying his colors.”

“His life is ruined anyway, Torino,” Tuzigoot shouted back. “No club, no Presidency, and now no old lady.”

Ford half-rose, he was so angry. He pointed at the table. “He still has his trucking business, the dispensary, the range, the army surplus. He’s hardly fucking ruined.”

Tuzigoot half-rose too. “Look at it this way, Torino. You remove him as President of the club, you’ve taken his entire life away from him. Take away his access to the chapel, game room, all the club facilities, just stick him in his office doing estimating and contracting. He might as well be retired.”

“But I still have to look at him,” seethed Ford. He was just livid. The club wasn’t going to let him wreak vengeance on the man who had mortally insulted his old lady. Since when had the club become such a namby-pamby bunch of wusses? “I still have to look at his fucking ugly goonish face, and so does my old lady if she wants to come visit me at the Citadel.”

Duji said, “We’re not all on the same page. Retirement is the best way to go. Let’s just put the fucker out to pasture so this doesn’t happen again. Now there’s one more agenda item. Slushy has received a date from that Lyle Bloodgood lawyer in Nogales. The eleventh is when the
suministros
need to be picked up at that Hardscrabble Ranch. Turk, why don’t you go down, since you’ve already seen the setup. Take Tall Peril with you as driver, since he knows the product. Ford? You want to go, to get your mind off things?”

Ford considered it, just because it had seemed as though Cropper didn’t want him returning to Nogales. He’d do anything to spite that bastard. Ultimately, though, his passion for Madison won out. He needed to go find her, to make sure she was all right.

To make sure she still wanted him.

MADISON

I
t started out being mortification that kept me away from Ford.

I was truly, thoroughly, utterly mortified by what had happened with his father. The Baal’s Minions had threatened me, I recalled through the haze. They had threatened to send the pictures to my hospital administrator, to ruin my chances of getting a new job in Pure and Easy.

Once they knew I was affiliated with an outlaw motorcycle club, no one would want me. That was probably true. Image was a lot of a nurse’s career. Any hint of a drink or drug problem or any other personal strangeness, and people talked.

I quickly got over my mortification when I discovered I was pregnant. Present tense—was still pregnant. Cropper may have made me bleed, but I didn’t lose the fetus.

Because Jake and I had always used rubbers like any good European, there was only one person who could possibly be the father.

I realized Cropper had maybe never penetrated me due to the Tay-Sachs gene he was obviously so paranoid of. Ford and I both, however, had gotten carried away that time in the toilet trailer during the rally. We’d been good all the other times we’d banged each other—just not that first time. That was obviously the fateful time.

And by “fateful,” I mean fateful. Obviously I considered aborting it. Ford Illuminati wasn’t the most stable or secure father-to-be in the world, and there was that pesky gene to think about. It wasn’t fated to be.

It was actually Sabrina who convinced me not to terminate the pregnancy. I stayed with her for a week and we had many good talks. Her mother had been a good Christian woman who worked for outreach organizations, so Sabrina had that upbeat, do-gooder attitude. Through our many talks, I realized I had alternatives.

“You love Ford.” Sabrina stated a flat fact. “You’ve loved him forever. The two of you are meant to be. I think you need to get over this Cropper thing.”

“It’s not that easy, Sabrina. Have you ever been molested? It stays with you, in your gut. Every time I look at Ford, I’m going to think about all the things Cropper did.”

“That’ll die down in time, Maddy. My mother worked with abused women, rape victims. True, it never really goes away completely. She said that sense of privacy, of being unviolated and safe, is what’s precious. But it does start to dull over time.”

“Yes. What do you mean ‘time’? Decades?”

“Maybe years.”

“Years. See, I don’t have years. The genetics of Tay-Sachs isn’t my field, but I talked to a few nurses I used to work with here in Flag who have studied it. My situation is extremely simplified if I do fetal DNA testing. His brother died of early-onset Tay-Sachs. Ford seems unaffected, but he could very well have late-onset. But to affect a child of ours, I have to be a carrier too. All I have to do is find out by doing both DNA and enzyme assays.”

“Then find out!” Sabrina cried, banging her fist on her table.

“I don’t want to run the tests at my hospital, that’s the problem. I already quit my job and I couldn’t afford COBRA so my insurance runs out soon. Anyway, I don’t want them knowing what’s going on with me. The test is about two hundred dollars.”

“Fucking hell!” cried Sabrina. “I’ll give you the fucking money if that’s what’s stopping you!”

It
was
stopping me. I hadn’t saved any money working as a nurse. Between paying my own condo rent and buying a new—now old—Honda, I had lived from paycheck to paycheck. So I took Sabrina up on her generous offer and went through her GP.

That’s how I found out that I was fine and our daughter was fine.

I was glad that Cropper hadn’t ruined that, too.

FORD

“For a hundred years or more the world, our world, has been dying. And not one man has been crazy enough to put a bomb up the asshole of creation and set it off.” ~ Henry Miller,
Tropic of Cancer

“T
he
suministros
are humans.”

Ford faced down Cropper like two gunmen in the middle of a dusty Wild West street, except they were on the same side of the battle.

Allegedly
on the same side, but Ford had wanted to take Cropper out since before Turk had called him with the news. Turk’s security cam that covered the Hardscrabble Ranch tunnel had shown him that the
suministros
, which all along Ford had assumed would be marijuana or cocaine, were in fact human fucking beings.

Ford had been sitting in his saddle, looking daggers at that fucktard doctor’s Flagstaff house, when Turk had called with the news of the human cargo.

“They’re fucking
people
, Ford, about thirty
human beings
. Mostly youngish women, a few able-bodied men. All I can figure is they’re trafficking in humans, maybe to use the women for whores or maids or whatever it is they do. The guys, I don’t even want to imagine.”

That had been the only thing to tear Ford from his reverie. He’d already been inside the oncologist’s house. He had busted his way through the front door when Dr. Jackoff had answered it. He had pummeled the idiot into oblivion in an attempt to find out where Madison was.

He’d come away empty-handed. More and more, as he sat on his ride fuming, looking at Madison’s old house, Ford was slowly facing facts.

Dr. Jackoff didn’t know where Madison was.

He’d only whaled on one guy, and already he was out of other options.

Once again, Maddy didn’t want to be found.

Surely, she had listened to his voicemails by now. She knew that he didn’t blame her in the slightest for the stories Tonya and Faux Pas had related. It was nothing new that Cropper was prone to that sort of shit. Ford could easily fix it so that Maddy never had to lay eyes on Cropper again. If Ford had his way,
he
would never have to look at the baboon, either.

“Where are the beaners now?” Ford asked.

“Bloodgood’s driver took them off the ranch property. I watched on the security feed as he herded them into their truck like fucking cows. I wouldn’t want to leave them lying around Mrs. Jonas’ place, anyway. What the fuck should I do, Ford? I mean, what the fuck? Bloodgood’s driver is supposed to transfer the
suministros
to our Illuminati truck in the loading dock of the Patagonia mall just as we discussed. Only one detail was left out, Ford. The
suministros
need air, food, water, and to take a serious bath.
What the fuck, man?
We’re not set up to deal with this.”

“It’ll take me five hours to get down there.” What the fuck would Ford even
do
once he got there? The beaners were a deal cut between Cropper and Bloodgood. No one had copped to seeing a hide nor hair of Cropper since Ford had whaled on him at Speed’s patch party. Of course, Riker hadn’t been seen either. “Turk, you’re going to have to track down Bloodgood within the next five hours. Tell him we don’t fucking traffic in human cargo. The fucking Baal’s Minions can have the contract back if Mrs. Jonas will accept them, but we don’t want anything to do with it. I won’t have time to stop off at the archery range and kill Slushy for not telling us.”