“Exactly. You don’t want the Nomads showin’ up to clean house do you? So come clean with me. How bad is this shit?”
“Bad. And getting worse. The binges are starting to become more frequent and lasting longer every time.”
“That where the profits are going? Cause I know your business isn’t down.”
Case nodded. “Yeah, most likely.”
“So you’ve got a President and VP strung out half the time. How the hell does anything get done down here?”
“The rest of us are all trying to hold it together. It’s been rough.”
“Case, get your ass over here,” Rocker yelled across the room.
Case moved off to join the brothers from his chapter.
Ghost and Shades exchanged a look.
“It’s fucked up worse than Butcher thought,” Ghost observed, leaning his elbows on the bar.
“Yeah, I don’t think he had any idea things were this bad,” Shades replied.
Blood and Sandman kept silent, quietly smoking and staring at a sign above the bar that read, Alabama: where the weak are killed and eaten.
Blood grinned. So prophetic.
Shades nursed his beer, his elbows on the bar, and thought about his options. He couldn’t really give Moon any orders, not that it would help. If this drug problem was as bad as he suspected, nothing short of pulling his patch would fix the problems in this chapter. That wasn’t something he had the authority to do. The state authority fell to Butcher, so that was a call he was going to have to make.
A few minutes later an older grey haired man went behind the bar and to the register. He ran a tally report of the day’s business so far. His eyes strayed to Shades and the rest of his crew, his gaze flicking over all of them, taking note of their colors.
“You Jerry, the owner?” Shades caught his attention. Butcher had filled him in with some information.
“Yeah.” His look said, ‘what of it’. He strolled over to him.
“I was sent down here to take a…shall we say, closer look at our Gulf Chapter. Clean up any problems we may have.”
“And?”
“And I want to know how this relationship is working out for you.”
“It’s not.”
Well, that was abrupt, Shades thought. “Tell me why.”
“Look, most of your boys mind their own business and don’t cause trouble.”
“Most?”
Jerry nodded, his eyes going to the group at the table.
Shades turned his head, following his gaze. Then he turned back. “Let me guess. The two in the corner?”
Jerry nodded again. “Mostly when those two are high on something.”
Shades nodded, taking it in.
“Death Heads are worse.”
Shades frowned. “The Death Heads MC has been coming round?”