The Unwilling(34)

“Oh, hey, man, Jason was cool. He rolled, but he’s like that. I told him to his face he was one badass dude. I said he was an iceman…”

“Like falling snow.”

“Yeah, yeah, cold but quiet. Just like that.”

“Anything else I should know? Did she say anything else? Do anything else?”

Both men shook their heads. “Nah, man. She tagged a few more cars, and split. Haven’t seen her since.”

French looked for signs of deceit; saw none. “If anyone else asks, you tell them what you told me, that Jason was in total control at all times.”

“Truth is truth.”

“I need to check his room.”

They went back to their beer and television, and French took the staircase up. In Jason’s room he found clothing, condoms, and in the back of a drawer, a .38 Special that he pocketed. Nothing else seemed remotely personal: a rumpled bed, a novel by Leon Uris called Battle Cry. Back outside, French knelt by the tree where Tyra had supposedly wrecked her Mercedes. He had no reason to doubt the men inside, but no reason to trust them, either. Gouged bark made him feel better. So did the shredded lawn, the bits of glass and broken plastic. Tyra had been here. She’d argued with his son; threatened him with a gun.

A shard of red plastic glinted in the sun.

Even if he was on drugs …

Even if the war had messed him up …

But French no longer knew his son. Drugs, prison, life in the dark parts of the city …

He needed more, so he worked the back alleys and informants, the off-license bars and drug dens and flophouses. He shook the trees, hoping his boy would fall out.

It didn’t happen.

By dusk, he could no longer ignore the radio. It squawked the moment he got back in the car. “David 218, Dispatch.”

He keyed the mic. “David 218, go ahead, Dispatch.”

“Detective Burklow has called four times now.”

“Stand by, Dispatch.” French lowered the mic and took a final moment for his sons.

What else could he do?

Gibby was safe—he’d made sure.

But Jason …

French stared out at a broken street lined with warehouses and bikers and women in short skirts. It was his seventh stop, and the story was the same as everywhere else. People knew Jason, but none had seen him, none would talk.

“Dispatch, David 218. Please tell Detective Burklow I’m 10-49, ETA twelve minutes.”





12


From a window above, Jason watched his father drive away. He saw the top of the car, the rear windshield and taillights. When his father was gone, Jason lit a cigarette and turned. “What did he want?”

A big biker stood at the top of the stairs, a mountain of muscle and denim and faded ink. “He wanted you.”

“Did he say why?”

“Didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”

Jason left the window, and sat at a scarred, wooden table. The floor beneath his feet was old, the windows behind him dirty glass in metal frames with peeling paint. The room had been an office once, with views down on to a factory floor where they’d made phone books back in the forties and fifties. Some hard-ass bikers owned it now, a club moving south from Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Pagans. They’d turned the factory into a private club with garages in back and rooms upstairs to crash. They had members, cash, credibility.

“Is your old man going to be a problem?”

The biker’s name was Darius Simms, a chapter president with ties running all the way back to the club’s early days in Prince George’s County, Maryland. He crossed his arms, and blue ink bulged on his biceps, the Argo tattoo as ubiquitous to Pagans as the patches on their denim cuts.

Jason said, “No. No problem.”

“As long as that’s true, our deal stands. The room. The privileges. But no one here likes cops with a reason to show up, unexpected.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Make sure it doesn’t.”

The biker clumped back down the stairs, and Jason moved to the big, interior window with views on to the old factory floor. The machines had been removed years ago. Now a bar ran along two sides, with booths and tables in the center. The crowd was not too big, maybe twenty bikers and twice as many women. A 1946 Flathead hung from the ceiling on chains. The lighting was poor. Gray smoke made a haze.

“Hey, baby. Are we doing this or not?”

Jason had almost forgotten about the woman, half-reclined on the low, long sofa. “What was your name again?”

“Angel.”

“How old are you, Angel?”

“Twenty-five.”

“I’m thinking nineteen.”

“Twenty-five. Nineteen. Does it matter?”

Jason studied her from across the room, the short skirt and tall boots. The red hair was nice. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’t do that anymore.”

“Don’t do what? Pretty girls? I have friends who say different. They say Jason French always has the dope, and that he screws like a rock star, too.”

Jason looked away from the smile she’d conjured like a two-bit magic trick.

“Come on, baby doll.” She swung her feet to the floor, revealing more of her long, pale thighs. “Can’t you help a girl out?”