“What do you mean, nothing?” I asked Coast as he continued to hit the keys on one crazy ass computer setup.
“Exactly that. I tracked it as far as Georgetown, it bounces back to Washington, DC, then over to Virginia, up to Maryland, and back again. It is stuck in some loop and when you trace the number back it hits a wall.” Coast frowned at his screen. How he knew what that shit meant was way passed my knowledge of computers.
“Can you break through the wall?”
“Eventually but it will take some time. Not going to have a quick answer on this one, Crusher. Whoever the lady is that keeps calling, she’s got connections.” Coast typed a bunch of codes in and then hit enter and pushed the chair back to stand. “I’ll let that program run, might take a day or two before is returns anything useful. I’ll keep checking and let you know. Other than to bring me your phone, what’re you doing at Black Hawk when you should be locking down your woman.”
“Don’t worry about my woman. She’s been locked down, it just hasn’t hit her yet. Plus, I wanted to check in with my dad. He and I had been going over some of the club business and books, past and present, but with all the shit going on, I haven’t gotten to sit down with him lately.” Coast nodded, he knew exactly what I had been doing, he’d been doing the same with his dad, Cruz. We all had, each one of the dads were responsible for some aspect of the MC. No one man would ever be able to keep up with everything it took to keep a club running smoothly. Especially one Black Hawk’s size. For a club that started with six members, it had grown steadily over the years, reaching as high as fifty members at a given time. Men come and men go, some just looking for a place to call home. Black Hawk had picked up members from the area when they moved in. Men who enjoyed the comradery, liked to ride motorcycles, and were looking for the loyalty and support of a brotherhood.
“Fair enough, but watch when it does hit her, she carries a gun.” Coast laughed as we walked out of his house.
“Nah, I locked that up when we got back. A tempered woman, a gun, and the authority to fire it, is not a good combination.” We reached the garage behind Speed’s place, as we walked in Coast and I both stopped to stare at the sight.
Flirt, Jag, and Devil sat on the floor with Ally, each with their head bent down over a carburetor, and parts and tools spread around them. But what stopped us was Ally’s appearance, she was covered in grease.
“Shit, Sami is going to kill you.” I walked over and looked down at them. Coast stood beside me, his head shaking back and forth.
“Sami knows Spider was going to help us today. We are showing her the working parts of the carburetor, she was in charge of greasing the parts up.” Flirt shrugged his shoulders like no big deal.
“Uh...did she bathe in the grease?” Ally looked up at us and Coast was the first to laugh.
“Dudes, you are in some much trouble.” The guys stood at Coast’s words and when Ally stood and I got the full view of her, I laughed too. Her black hair was in a ponytail, with sections that had come out of the band that was holding it off her face. Black marks were streaked on her face and the parts of her arms, not covered by the t-shirt she wore, were in no better shape than her face. The little girl’s clothes, Sami would be better off burning than trying to wash. But the smile on Ally’s face might be the only thing that would keep Speed from joining in on Sami’s murders.
“Uncle Crusher, Uncle Coast, looks at my work. I’m helping put the carbeaters together.” Ally’s excitement was contagious.
“I see that. How’d you get all that grease on you?” I asked and she looked down at herself as if she didn’t know there was anything on her. Then she ran her hands down her shirt and jeans as if to dust off what she found. When she raised her head back up and looked at me, her hands went to her face and she pushed the loose strands of hair out of the way, smearing what grease she had on hands across her face.
“I helped Uncle Devil change the oil in his bike.” She gave me the look of ‘duh’ and I looked at Devil who just smirked. Yeah, see how long the brother would keep that look when the momma stood in front of him.
“Nice knowing you, fucker,” Coast said and I smacked him in the chest. We at least made an attempt to clean up our language when the kid was around. But when I looked back at her, waiting for her usual response when foul language was used, she had her hands held out. One in my direction and the other in Coast’s direction. When she spoke, I understood why we didn’t get corrected.
“Uncle Jag said that I could get cash for not rattings out the men when they said bad words. See.” She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out what looked like about five ones, then shoved them back in her pocket and held the hand she used back out to me. “I gots that just from Uncle Jag ‘cause he hurt his finger working on the bike and said a wholes bunches of bad words.” I looked at Jag and he shrugged.
“Look at it this way. Speed and Sami won’t have to come up with a shitload of cash for college.” I couldn’t argue there but I wasn’t going to stick around for the fireworks so I dug in my pocket and pulled out a dollar bill and handed it over. Coast did the same thing and we watched Ally look at the bills like she was checking to see if they were fake and then she smiled and shoved them in her pocket. Black Hawk’s own little shyster.
“I’m out. Going to see Stroker at the clubhouse. Nice knowing you dumbasses.” I headed for the door. “Spider, I don’t have any more ones, I’ll have to owe you.”
“Hey, you aren’t going to help us? How are we supposed to get her cleaned up,” Flirt yelled.
“My suggestion. A strip down on the porch and a scrub in the shower.” I walked out and didn’t look back, but I did laugh at the panicked voices yelling behind me.
“We can’t bathe a little girl!”
I approached the door to Stroker’s office and knocked. The muffled voices I heard in the office quieted.
“Who is it?” Stroker yelled.
“Just me, Prez.” I heard shuffling noises and then Flyboy, Jag’s dad and VP, opened the door to me. I walked in and Stroker sat at the table in the back of the room with Cruz, Romeo, and Preacher, the table had files spread out. It didn’t escape me that Flyboy didn’t sit back down but continued to stand by the door.
“Need something, Crusher?” Stroker asked as he closed the file in front of him.
“Checking in. Had some time if you wanted to go over some things. I can get the others to come over from the garage to help with whatever that mess is in front of you.” With the amount of files spread out, I wondered if we had any issues going on with any of the club’s businesses.
“No, you boys do whatever you got going on. We got this covered.” The others looked at Stroker, and then back at me. I could take a fucking hint, so I turned back toward the door.
“Call if you need me.” I walked passed Flyboy and he started to close the door.
“Crusher?” I stopped and turned back around. “The ol’ ladies and Daisy are cooking up stuff for a cookout for tomorrow after Church, let the others know.”
I didn’t reply, just nodded, turned, and headed down the hall, the sound of the door being shut and the lock being engaged followed me. Seemed like being away from Black Hawk the last couple of weeks had changed the dynamics. I shrugged the feeling of unease away and walked through the clubhouse and out the door. There was time to worry about that shit later. I was going to my house to grab a few things and head back to Carly’s. I needed to apologize for mauling her against the wall after her doctor’s appointment. She still needed to take it easy and I had lost a little of my control. Christ, if I hadn’t heard Speed’s bike coming down the street, I would have taken her against that damn wall, injured or not. Unacceptable.
I entered my house with the thought that I needed to kick my own ass and slammed the door behind me.