Griz and Shades turned from the woman just in time to watch JJ hightail it around the corner of the building. The two men exchanged a look. Griz pulled the cigarette from his mouth and observed, “Guess he decided to go with cowardly and terrified.”
They chuckled.
“This place is gettin’ to be like Grand Central Station. Let’s go inside,” Heavy suggested.
The men headed inside as the caterwauling at the gate continued. They walked into the darkened main room of the clubhouse and headed to the long bar at the back.
“Twisted. Manipulative. Devious,” Tater was muttering, his shoulders slumped over the bar.
“What’s that, your online dating profile?” Ghost asked with a smirk and a slap to his back.
“Shut the fuck up, smartass. My damn ol’ lady just blew through all our fucking savings.” He suddenly picked up the almost empty bottle of whiskey sitting in front of him and threw it at the shelf of bar glasses mounted in front of the mirror on the wall behind the bar. All but one smashed into pieces. Tater was a big ol’ teddy bear of a man. All the women in the club loved him and he almost always had a happy disposition. So this type of outburst was rare for him.
“You missed one,” Griz pointed out helpfully.
Tater casually walked around the bar, picked the only remaining intact glass up off the shelf and promptly threw it at Griz’s head.
“Something’s wrong with you, Brother,” Shades observed as Griz ducked out of the way.
Ghost clapped Shades on the back and corrected, “We don’t say wrong, we say special.”
“Hey, Prospect!” Tater shouted toward the kid by the door. “Get over here and clean this fucking glass up!”
“He’s gonna be a miserable prick to be around the next few days,” Shades conceded in a low voice.
Griz grinned. “Yeah. Well, he’s in the right place for that.”
Shades nodded. The mood around
the clubhouse had indeed been somber, each brother taking the loss of Bulldog in their own way. Some with anger and outbursts, some with humor and cutting up.
“So when’s the meeting starting? Everyone here?” Shades asked, leaning back against the pool table.
Ghost moved around the bar and grabbed them each a bottle of beer and passed them out as he slouched against the pool table next to Shades. “Waitin’ on Spider. He’s on his way.”
Griz twisted the cap off his bottle and pitched it at Tater, who still stood behind the bar, his palms flat on the bar top, his shoulders slumped. When the bottle-cap hit him in the side of the head, Tater looked up and flipped Griz off.
Shades shook his head with a grin.
****
Boot and Slick sat at the table, behind closed doors. Church was going to start soon, but before it did, Butcher had asked to speak with the two brothers privately.
Now he looked over at the two men, both brothers who had been with the club for a long fucking time. Both brothers he knew he could trust with his life. Either one he knew would make a good VP.
Slick was the club’s Treasurer. In another life, a lifetime ago, he’d been an attorney. That was before he’d bought a bike, divorced his wife and, in her words, ‘went off the deep end’.
Butcher remembered riding with him not long after that, down in Florida during Daytona Bike Week. The three of them, Butcher, Slick and Boot had ended up hauled in for public intoxication.
When they’d been brought before the judge, the courtroom had been crowded. There was a line against the wall as defendants stood waiting for their turn to stand before the bench. When it had been Boot’s turn he took his place before the judge. Slick and Butcher waited in the line against the wall for their turn. The judge had asked Boot if he had an attorney present. The stupid fucker had looked back questioningly at Slick who was standing in the line in shackles with the rest of them. Slick had shook his head furiously at him. Boot turned back to the judge and replied, “No, your honor.”
Dumb motherfucker.
Butcher had looked at his feet as his shoulders shook with the laughter he’d tried to smoother in the quiet courtroom.
Now, what seemed like a lifetime later, it was still a funny story.
Butcher cleared his throat. Time to get down to business. “So, obviously we have a VP spot to fill. So let’s cut to the chase. Either of you interested?”