The Marauders’ clubhouse was located about half a mile from the Heart of Wilmington Motel. We’d driven past it twice this weekend without a second glance; it was an anonymous concrete fortress. The windows were boarded up. There was no signage anywhere, no address number. The parking lot was cracked and empty. The building had, once upon a time, been a strip club. There was more discreet parking out back. That was where we’d find the motorcycles, I guessed.
Barack and I parked in the lot of the pawn shop next door. There were two pickup trucks next to us, which gave us some small cover as we scoped out the clubhouse. The last time I’d been inside a hockshop had been back in college. These days, pawn stores were being replaced by check-cashing joints and payday-loan emporiums that had no qualms about taking advantage of the struggling American consumer during times of hardship.
“Guns, gold, jewelry, and DVDs,” Barack said, reading the window signage. “The story of America. All that’s missing are the Bibles.”
“I’ve never heard of someone pawning a Bible,” I said. “Where I come from, you can lose your home, your kids, your wife, and the clothes off your back…but the one thing you hold onto is the Holy Bible.”
“This is where you come from, Joe.”
He was half right. Though this wasn’t a neighborhood I’d ever spent time in, Wilmington was where I’d lived for most of the past sixty-plus years. My formative years, however, had happened in Scranton. It was where my ancestors were; it was where my roots were. Can a man claim more than one hometown?
I flipped the visor up. “Let’s go next door and get this over with.”
“Remember, it’s just you and me now. We don’t have any backup. We don’t have any weapons. If anyone’s in there, they’re going to be armed to the teeth. So we should figure out how we’re going to play this before we just bust through the front door like a two-man SWAT team. Speaking of which, it would take a lot more than a shoulder to knock that door in.”
The front door was steel. It could have been a foot thick for all we knew. Neither Barack nor I was on the guest list. There was, however, an alley that ran between the clubhouse and the pawn store. “We’ll go around back. There’s more than one way in and out. Once we’re inside, we’ll ask some questions. There’s our plan. See how easy that was?”
Barack frowned. “Without a court order, it might be difficult to get them to cooperate. They’re called outlaw biker gangs for a reason.”
“I’ll open my wallet if I have to. And if that doesn’t work…”
I cracked my knuckles.
“You’re getting worked up, Joe. If you walk in there angry, you’re going to encounter nothing but hostility. Let’s just sit here in the car for a few minutes and breathe deeply. Okay?”
“I’ll breathe deeply when this is over,” I said, throwing my door open.
“Wait,” Barack said, reaching for me.
It was too late, though. I was done waiting.
This time, Barack didn’t follow me.
Behind the clubhouse, two dozen motorcycles were lined up against the building. All that chrome shone brightly under the midday sun.
I slipped on my Ray-Bans.
There was, as I’d suspected, a back door for deliveries. A little wooden ramp led up to it. The door was steel, same as the front, with one difference: it was propped open with a keg. The country twang of Kenny Rogers drifted out of the open door. The sun cast my shadow behind me, and there wasn’t enough light coming from within the building to see beyond the opening.
I took a deep breath.
The Irish in me told me to barge in and make a scene, but Barack was right. We were both unarmed. My “plan” wasn’t a plan at all. It was bullheaded and reckless. As soon as I put one sandal inside the clubhouse, I would be crossing a line that I couldn’t uncross. The longer I thought it over, the more I realized just how far in over our heads we were. Barack and I weren’t detectives. We weren’t even politicians anymore. We should have known better than to go around poking bulls. One of us was liable to get gored.
On the other hand, there was something to be said for just going for it. Thinking was overrated. Even the best-laid plans could fail. Just ask Hillary.
I stepped through the open door. Inside the clubhouse was pitch-black. I couldn’t see a thing, including my own nose. It took me a second to figure out that was because of my sunglasses.
Once I took them off, I could see better. Funny how that works.
There weren’t any lights on, but there was a little sunlight coming in from the open door behind me. Enough to recognize I was in a kitchen. Dishes were stacked high in a sink. It didn’t look like anyone had cooked in here since the Cold War.
I found a door on the far wall and opened it a crack…
You know that scene in movies where the out-of-place guy struts into the honky-tonk, and the music stops playing and everyone looks up and there’s that long moment of uncomfortable silence?
That’s not how it happens in real life.
In real life, the music keeps playing. That uncomfortable moment is stretched out even longer as you wait for someone to unplug the jukebox. Not that I mind Kenny Rogers, but when you’ve got two-dozen bikers pointing guns at your face, the last thing you want to hear is all that talk about knowing when to walk away and when to run. It doesn’t matter how fast you are. Even if my knee had been one hundred percent, it’s impossible to outrun a hailstorm of bullets.