Chapter 2
Anchorage, Alaska
1998
Fourteen-year-old Boaz Quinn drifted the back tire of his street-legal Honda dirt bike, throwing up a rooster tail of gravel before coming to a stop in the alley behind the Lucky Wishbone restaurant. Four other motorcycles rolled in behind him. The other riders were all in high school, or at least they should have been.
Jace, a short kid with a wild look in his eye, slid to a stop on the cracked pavement and held up his hand in the dusky light.
“Kill it,” Jace said, turning off his own bike. At eighteen, he was the oldest, and the mastermind of the would-be gang. Beef, a big Samoan who was about the same age, provided the smaller Jace with the muscle it took to be the leader. He looked ridiculous on his small dirt bike, but no one said anything about it. Chris was sixteen and already had a full beard. His mom also let him get a tattoo of a dagger on his arm, which Bo thought was pretty cool of her. Austin was a wiry kid with a long history of run-ins with the police. He’d been in and out of McLaughlin Youth Center dozens of times, which only added to his mystique among the gang. Bo was the youngest and the best rider of the group by far. He was maturing early, and looked older than he was. He could probably have given Chris a run for his money on a beard, but Bo’s old man was having none of that.
Pete Quinn often said that if either of his sons didn’t keep a decent haircut he’d take them out in the fishing boat and only he and the boat would be coming back. As big and tough as the elder Quinn was, it was an empty threat. He would, however, cut that shaggy hair himself, and the only thing he knew how to do was shear it down to the scalp. Bo wasn’t about to let that happen. He was only fourteen, but old enough to taste the legal freedom of his new motorcycle license, and had recently discovered how much the girls in eighth grade loved his curly blond locks.
Fortunately for Bo, the Coho salmon fishery would keep his dad down on the Kenai for the next couple of weeks. He didn’t have to worry about his hair or the strict curfew his old man enforced. Anchorage, Pete Quinn said, was a different town after midnight, when the meatheads came out in force. That was colorful as his old man’s language ever got. Meatheads. Oh, he had a temper, and was known to have caved in a skull or two over the years, especially if anyone disrespected his wife or boys, but that temper manifested itself through his fists, not his words.
Bo’s mother taught summer school, so she was always exhausted and gone to bed early. Bo’s older brother wanted to get into the Air Force Academy and took his studies much too seriously. He’d been in his room reviewing his brains out when Bo slipped out the back door and rolled the motorcycle down the street nearly a full block before starting it. Bo had made a clean getaway and was free to stay out all night—which was exactly what he planned to do.
Jace said he knew about a poker game at an apartment near the Lucky Wishbone. Bo was pretty good at poker, winning more than he lost in hunting camp with his brother and old man. There’d be some beer at this game, and probably some weed, but Bo thought he’d stick with the beer. His old man drank a beer now and then, so he couldn’t say much if his son decided to imbibe. Getting high, well, that would be a bridge too far in the mind of Pete Quinn.
“Quinn!” Jace snapped him out of his thoughts. “Pull your head out of your ass. You even hear what I said?”
Bo shook his head, flustered at having let the leader of his gang down. “Sorry. What?”
“I said you go in first,” Jace nodded to the apartments at the end of the alley. “You got a trustworthy face. They’ll open the door for you. Big Ray knows me and Beef, so we can’t come in until the door’s open.”
“What do you mean?” Bo said. “If they won’t even let you in the door how do you expect to get in on the game?”
The others laughed. Jace pulled out a small silver pistol. It looked cheap, but Bo knew guns and this one was plenty real. “You idiot,” he said. “We didn’t come to get in on the game. We came here to rob it.”
Bo gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to look stupid in front of his friends, but he didn’t want to commit a felony either.
“You said Ray knows you,” Bo said. “How do you expect to get away with this if he knows who you are?”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Chris said, backing Jace’s play. “It’s an illegal poker game. APD knows about it, but it floats from place to place so they haven’t been able to bust it. No way Ray’s going to report it.”
“Besides,” Beef said. “We’ll be wearing masks.”
Bo’s mouth fell open at that. “You said I had a trustworthy face. That means Ray will know who I am.”
Austin looked at Bo and gave him a half grin. “Don’t piss yourself, kid. You’re young. You never been in trouble before. Even if you did get popped for this, I doubt you’d do more than a couple hours at McLaughlin.”
Bo set his jaw and shook his head again. He’d thought smoking a little weed was a bridge too far. It was obvious all the other boys but him had been privy to the plan.
“I’m not comfortable with this,” he said.
Jace sneered. “So? None of us gives a shit if you’re comfortable. You’re either with us or you’re against us.”
“I’m not doing it.”
Jace brandished the little pistol. “Oh,” he said. “You’re doin’ it all right.”
A new voice from the shadows behind the group caused them all to look up. Bo recognized it immediately and turned to find his brother sitting astride his Harley Davidson Sportster. He wore a half helmet, jeans, and a leather jacket, zipped up against the chilly Alaska evening.
“What the hell?” Jace said, holding the pistol. Every boy knew that Bo’s seventeen-year-old brother was the Golden Glove boxing champion in Alaska.
“Jericho?” Bo said. “What are you doing here?”
The older Quinn sat quietly, considering each boy through narrow eyes, as if they were pieces of meat. That was the thing about Jericho. He was a good enough big brother, but he could scare the piss out of you with a look. Dark, like their mother, he had the intensity of their dad.
“Come on,” Jericho said at length.
Bo nodded to the Sportster. “How’d you sneak up on us with those hellacious pipes?”
Jericho shrugged. “Guess you’re not the only one who can coast a bike. Now come on.”
“Bo’s with us tonight,” Jace said. He tipped his head back and forth, motioning for the others to spread out. Beef rolled toward Jericho while Austin and Chris duck walked their motorcycles to either side, blocking him between the bikes and the back wall of The Lucky Wishbone.
Jericho ignored them, looking instead at Bo. “I said come on.”
Jace chuckled. “You let your brother tell you what to do?”
Bo’s neck burned. He didn’t want to rob the poker game, but he didn’t jump just because his big brother said to either.
“I’ve got this,” he snapped.
“I can see that,” Jericho said. “Now start your bike and ride out of here with me. Mom’s gonna be worried.”
“You just don’t get it, do you, asshole?” Jace said. He gave an almost imperceptible nod to Beef. “Bo’s made his choice. He’s not going anywhere. His mommy will be fine.”
Jericho took a long breath, staring directly at Jace.
“Let’s go,” he said again.
The Harley roared to life.
Beef rolled forward, further closing the distance. “You should get outta here before I drag you off your bike and shove that helmet up your—
Jericho didn’t go much for threats. He never had. Bo shook his head and watched as his brother popped the clutch, holding the front brake to throw up a cloud of white smoke from the spinning rear tire. The wheel came around fast, slamming into a startled Beef and catching the big Samoan’s leg between the rear sprocket and the engine of his own bike. The snapping bone was audible even over the brap of the Harley.
Both Chris and Austin bailed off their bikes, rushing Jericho from both sides.
“You son of a bitch!” Jace screamed, riding his motorcycle straight at Bo, colliding with the front tire.
Bo scrambled off in time to keep from getting run over. Seething with anger, he peeled off his helmet and swung it like a club, catching Jace in the side of the head and dropping him like a tree.
“That’s for calling my brother an asshole,” he said, spinning to help Jericho.
Chris and Austin were already flat on the pavement, noses smeared across their faces. Beef leaned against his bike clutching the injured leg.
The big kid spoke through clenched teeth. “You gonna call me an ambulance or something?”
“Nope,” Jericho said. He didn’t explain himself, but it was apparent that he thought the boys should have anticipated that things were bound to get a little bloody.
He swung a leg back over his Harley and looked at Bo. “Are you okay?”
Bo nodded. “I thought we were just going to play some cards,” he said. “I wasn’t gonna rob anybody.”
“I know that,” Jericho said.
Bo strapped his helmet back on.
“Are you gonna tell Mom?”
“Nope,” Jericho said. “Not unless she catches us coming in. I won’t lie for you.”
“I didn’t really need any help,” Bo said after he’d climbed back on his own bike. “I’m a better rider than any of those guys. I could have just run away.”
Jericho shook his head. “Running away from these meatheads is something you should have done a long time ago,” he said, sounding an awful lot like their old man.