But wait, it gets worse. We’re just going around a pile of railroad ties, almost at the tracks, when we hear a low rumble. It gets louder, then deafening, and for a second I wonder if a train is rolling in. Then two men on giant motorcycles roll into the clearing, their choppers blatting and farting like hungover moose. They pull up and look around. Instinctively, we all duck behind the railroad ties. The engines cut out. In the tingly silence that comes after, a voice gripes, “I haven’t felt my bleeping butt since Wawa.”
“Nobody wants to bleeping feel your bleeping butt anyway,” says another voice.
“Bleep bleep smart guy bleep.”
They didn’t really say bleep, but I’m hoping to keep this mostly PG. I peek around the railroad ties as they get off their bikes. They’re big guys in biker boots, leather pants and sleeveless jean jackets. One guy has a huge droopy mustache to go with his gut. The other is short, but as wide as he is tall. His head is a helmet with an orange beard exploding out the bottom. Al is a big guy. These two make him look like a carrot stick, and me a cardboard match, or worse.
“Think that’s it?” Mustache says. “Looks like they ditched it.”
“Gotta bleeping be,” says Beard. “This is bleeping Jackfish and that’s a bleeping white Caddy.”
“The stuff better be in there. Let’s find out and get outta here.” They’re waving away the bugs as they look around the clearing. As they turn, I see the backs of their jean jackets feature a big capital letter A with a circle over it, like a halo, maybe. I duck back, then peek again as their boots crunch toward Al’s car. Beside me, Al is moaning softly, “Aw no, no!”
“Who are they?” I hiss.
“They must be the bikers that were part of the deal,” Al hisses back. “I told ya: it’s some kind of three-way setup: the Wings, some street gang and bikers. I was supposed to pick up drugs for Rocco and his boys to deliver. Word was, they were going to deal ’em to this whaddyacallit—posse, that’s it— outta state, so they could deal the stuff to bikers for god knows what; guns, I think. Something like that anyway. But if these are the bikers, how did they know to come here?”
I look carefully over the woodpile. Mustache is yanking at a door handle. “Let’s do the top,” he growls. He pulls something from a pocket, flicks it, and there’s the biggest knife I’ve ever seen.
“Nah,” Orange Beard says, “I’ll get it.” He raises one gigantic biker-booted foot and kicks the trunk lock with his heel. CLUNK. A big dent creases the white metal, way bigger than the ones GL made with her cane back in Buffalo.
“Aw, noooo!” Al again.
“Why don’t you just give them the drugs?” AmberLea whispers.
“Because it’s icing sugar!”
“In a pig’s eye,” snaps GL. “Cut the crap. Give them the fairy dust and we’ll get on with our business. This isn’t what we’re here for.”
CLUNK. “Hurry up. The bugs are nuts here.” Sounds like Mustache.
“We don’t even have a gun,” Al whines. “What did you ditch my gun for?”
“Fat lot of good it would do you anyway,” huffs GL.
CLUNK. Over by the car a voice says, “Let’s just use the can opener.” Then there’s a flat crack, like the one I heard back in the Buffalo parking lot. Al winces as if he got shot himself.
I peek out again. Orange Beard has a gun in his fist. The trunk lid has popped up a few inches. Both bikers are too busy waving away blackflies to open it all the way yet. As Orange Beard reaches for the lid, a black Lincoln Navigator roars into the clearing, pulling a skid stop that puts it sideways to the bikers. Out the far side tumble the Wings boys, KK and AB, guns drawn across the hood of the SUV. “Get away from the car,” one of them shouts.