Reaper's Property(68)

The man wasn’t in the main lounge or the meeting room, so Horse headed back toward the office. They kept their records there, at least the official ones, and Horse stored the legitimate business accounts there too. It was convenient and would make things efficient if they ever got served with a warrant. Just for fun, he’d filled a couple lockboxes with shady-looking paperwork and decoy overseas account numbers—he liked the idea of some cop blowing his wad if he found them, then spending months trying to put it all together. Horse opened the door to find Picnic pounding into a woman face down on the desk, his pants around his ankles, her hair pulled back like reins.
“Getting an early start?” Horse asked, smirking. “No wonder you wanted Em the hell out of here. You’re a perv, you know that?”
“Get the f*ck out unless someone’s shooting at us,” Picnic grumbled and Horse laughed, closing the door and heading back toward the shop. Ruger was a hell of a gunsmith and he did his most sensitive work back there, away from any curious eyes at the gun shop. If the visiting boys needed hardware, that’s where they’d find it. Horse threw open the door and saw Ruger at his bench, holding up a fully automated assault rifle, one of his specialties. Several of the brothers stood around, talking shit, while one of the Portland men reached for the gun.
“It’s a thing of beauty, but not exactly practical,” he said, laughing as he hefted it. “Can’t see this in my saddlebags. Like something out of Thunderdome.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ruger replied. “But these dumb-f*ck militia dicks can’t get enough of ’em. Think they’re all Rambo or something. ‘Master race’, my ass, I make a fortune off those idiots.”
“Ruger, got a minute?” Horse asked. Ruger ambled on over.
“What’s up?”
“Marie’s upstairs, and I’m thinking about security for the next few days,” Horse said. “You got any thoughts on that? I know manpower’s limited, and I’m wondering if we wanted to rig up any extra precautions.”
“Already ahead of you,” Ruger said, flashing a smile. He flicked his lip ring with his tongue as he grabbed a laptop from the bench, popping it open. The guy looked scary as hell with his tats, mohawk, chains and piercings, but around technology he was more like a little kid at Christmas. Ruger popped open the security control panel for the clubhouse on the laptop, and he clicked on a multicolored layout of the armory and surrounding property. “See here? We’ve got the cams and basic motion sensors, of course, but I’m planning on putting in some new stuff around the perimeter, right here. We need detection, but I’m also worried about manpower. I want to rig some traps that we can trigger by computer or phone if we need to. I know we can’t count on the electronics a hundred percent, but we can only spread ourselves so thin. This gives us more options.”
“Can we put something outside her room?” Horse. “I know it’s not a top priority, but I’d like to keep an eye on her. Just in case they buy off one of the girls or something. This probably won’t come down to a frontal assault.”
Ruger scratched his head, considering.
“I can rig something up for you,” he said. “Won’t be until tomorrow. After I fix the guys up back here I’m ready for some *. Speaking of, you sure about yours?”
“You sayin’ I have a *?” Horse asked, crossing his arms and cocking an eyebrow.
“Don’t be an *, you know I meant your girl upstairs. I get that you’re into her. But she knows his life is at stake and we might be the ones to kill him. You might want to consider the possibility that she’s working with Jensen on this. She’s only human, Horse.”
Horse shook his head.
“Marie can’t lie for shit,” he replied, pinching the bridge of his nose, feeling tired. “And even if she was, she doesn’t know a damn thing. Couldn’t be his source of information.”
“If they’re talking, she wouldn’t have to be his only source,” Ruger replied, his tone reasonable. “He might be using her. I don’t think she’s screwing you on purpose—”
“Oh, she’s definitely screwing me on purpose,” Horse replied, deadpan.
“Fuck you,” Ruger replied, grinning. “You know what I mean. She’s the victim in this situation and she believes in her brother. She tells him about your day-to-day life, he puts that together with a couple other sources, could add up. You don’t tell her about club business, but she sure as shit knows when we’re on a long run. All the women do. Fuck, for all we know he’s on Facebook with them or something, pretending to be some chick they know. You get enough old ladies talking about their men being gone, it adds up.”
“Shit,” muttered Horse, shaking his head. “Never thought of that. This is a pain in the ass, you know that?”
“Ya think?” Ruger asked, rubbing a hand across his tattooed scalp and the short buzz of his mohawk. “So you want cameras on her. Sure you don’t want something inside the room too?”
“Nope, don’t want your sick ass watching us f*ck,” Horse replied. “But I do want to check on her, make sure nobody’s lingering, trying to get to her. You know what I mean? Oh, and a GPS on her car. Want to be able to find her. Make sure she doesn’t see you, want to keep her safe, not freak her out more.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow. Right now I need someone sucking my dick, and unless you’re planning to share your old lady, I got higher priorities than this conversation.”