Bad to the Bones(35)
“And you’re just a Prospect now? Who are you to tell me what to do?”
“You’re here to obey any brother, Prospect or not.” Knoxie realized he sounded like Shakti with his honor and obey commands. He softened his hard stance, entering the room and tearing the heavy army blanket from the window. Diffuse sunlight washed through the room, revealing women’s tank tops, cutoff shorts, and the debris of a drug habit scattered throughout the room. “How’s about this room? This room’ll do fine.”
A sly look came over Hilary’s foxy face. “This is Daisy’s room. I don’t like her anyway. She stole Wild Man from me. Yeah, let’s use this room for your whore.”
“She’s not a whore.”
Hilary helped Knoxie clear out the belongings of a girl who wasn’t even present to defend herself. Hilary got cleaning supplies from the kitchen and she wiped the windows so clean Knoxie swore he could see Indian hieroglyphics on the distant cliffs. Knoxie packed up all Daisy’s crap into a pillowcase and left it in the kitchen, tossing the used needles in the dumpster outside the hangar. Hilary swept and even mopped the floor, giving the room a pine scent, and Knoxie opened the window to air it out.
“Thanks, Hilary.” He lifted his hand to the sweetbutt. “I’m going in search of a bed.”
“Those are hard to find,” said the eyeliner queen. “We’re low on all kinds of furniture.”
Knoxie set off down the central hall, peering into various rooms. It was like a f*cking opium den in there, with all these screened-off little cubicles that smelled funny. As a hang-around, Knoxie had never been to The Citadel, and it was creepy to see a room stenciled in the mid-20th century as the “War Room” now used as a cave where the giant Aztec Tuzigoot could jam his craggy face between a sweetbutt’s thighs and worry her like a wolf at the kill.
When Knoxie saw what couldn’t be unseen, he knew church was out, so he headed down into the hangar. Damn. He was used to raunchy scenarios, working on the Triple Exposure’s sound stage, but it was all for show. The second Mel shouted “Cut!” everyone lit their cigarettes and checked their texts. Knoxie was all for eating at the Y, but doing it with the door open where anyone walking by could just take a gander? Maybe he was rebelling against that warped swami’s idea of public seminars where anything went. He never wanted Bellamy to have her privacy invaded ever, ever again. The room he’d chosen for her could be locked from inside.
In the stairwell, he ran into Lytton. “Brother, I’ve got to give you the lowdown,” said the pot farmer.
Drawing Knoxie downstairs, they wandered over to where Speed was tinkering with an excavator. Speed could hear Lytton’s news. He’d just been at church, too, so was privy to everything. It rankled Knoxie that he wasn’t allowed to listen in on urgent business that directly affected himself. He’d better get used to it.
Lytton said, “That Stuart Grillo dude whose name you found all over that Safeway truck? Rang a bell with me, too, but you know I grew up on the res, and then on my farm up Mormon Mountain. So I didn’t know these guys that well, but Ford instantly knew who it was. Turns out he used to be a Boner. You might recall him as Cropper Illuminati’s right-hand man, his sergeant-at-arms. Riker.”
Knoxie was stunned. Of course he knew Riker. That perverted guy was so greasy that he slid into every girl’s pants, and so dirty that he looked like he’d emerged from an oil slick. He was a good enough guy, always willing to go to bat for the club, and loyal to a fault. The club was Riker’s life, which was why it was strange when he’d just vanished a couple years ago. It was around the same time Cropper’s body had turned up riddled with bullets in the desert near Nogales, somewhere off 82 in the Coronado National Forest. Word on the street was that Ford, Cropper’s son, had shredded his old man. But since Riker had vanished like a yellow wuss, it was rumored maybe he’d taken the old President down first.
“No shit. That’s his birth name?”
“Exactly. Ford remembered ‘cause he had to hang onto Riker’s driver’s license at one rally to prevent a DUI.”
Knoxie chuckled. “Only one rally?” Riker was notorious for his ability to consume large amounts of booze and drugs and still stand. At one rally, he’d jumped on the hoods of a row of cages and tried to pull a tow truck by its cable. He was always staggering around oblivious that he was still wearing nipple clamps or with a urethral sound sticking from his cut pocket. The worst was the time he’d wandered around wearing a locked chastity harness. Yes, locked. And of course Riker had no clue where the key was. Whoever was the Prospect at that time had a hell of a chore. “So Riker’s still alive and kicking and in cahoots with the Presencións.”
“Yeah. Delivering cheese heroin to your kooky buddies.”
“And f*ck knows how many other high schoolers.”
“Exactly. We need to send you on a little voyage of discovery down to the border, Knoxie. You said it appeared Riker did the Nogales to Phoenix run with the Safeway truck. We presume he’s got some kind of crib in Nogales.”
“You want me to take him out?” Knoxie’s heart sank. Not so much at the idea of taking Riker out, but that he’d miss getting Bellamy set up in her new digs.
“Well, lay low for now, just get some intel and come back. If Riker’s out there going cowboy, operating beyond the limits of any acceptable human conduct, we need to terminate it.”