Bad to the Bones(59)
Knoxie glared at his partner. “They come to you because you’re a cheap easy f*cking mark. They exploit homeless people—it cost the club thousands of dollars to ship back the ones who didn’t die of exposure on some remote plateau. Listen, bud.” For good measure, Knoxie gripped the same handful of Adrian’s shirt, just to shake him around and punctuate his point. “Don’t speak a word about anything to any of those whackos. You see one coming, you close and lock the door.” Setting Adrian on his feet, Knoxie added, “I’m going on another club job. Hopefully it’ll only take me overnight. What else did you tell the fake doctor?”
Adrian didn’t say a word of protest this time, his confidence having been shaken out of him. He saluted like a good, but shaky, soldier. “Nothing, I don’t think. I think that was it.” He punched the air feebly. “You go get ‘em, Knoxie. Or should I say Rex Havox? They’ll be calling you Rex Havox before this is over.”
As he left The Missing Ink, Knoxie didn’t really have a solid plan in mind. Everything hinged upon the intel Rafael would give him when they met at the truck stop later that day. Rafael would return to Nogales for another load of “granola” and cheese heroin to ply the ashramites with. The A-1 dope would be stepped on with baking soda and mannitol—or worse, brick dust, glass, or floor cleaner—before mixing the sugar, coloring, and PM sleeping pills in for the teen crowd.
It was up to Rafael to coordinate with the DEA when and where they wanted to take out the woo-woos. Knoxie wanted to hit them again when they were down in a double whammy.
He had to give Bellamy time to recover from her ordeal. But in the meantime, he was going to bring Shakti and his followers down to the ground.
Swinging around the corner and onto Rael Street, Knoxie barely paused his stride as he swiped a poster declaring MIKE FRYMIRE FOR COUNCILMAN from where it’d been taped to his storefront window. Frymire was the zombies’ choice for candidate, and Frymire was going down with the rest of them.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BELLAMY
I stopped at the main guard house on my Sporty, having stolen some purplish clothing from Madison. I acted like nothing was unusual, I’d just been out on a tampax run. Mention tampaxes, and men clam up real fast and shoo you on your way. But I was sure the daimyo guarding that entrance immediately called Shakti. There was probably a giant photo of me inside his shack, like America’s Most Wanted.
Now that we both had phones, Virginia was expecting me up at the composting facility. Not everyone knew I had been cast out, apparently, because I rode past many friends who waved at me. My goal was to stay off Shakti’s radar, as Knoxie would say, until I could get Virginia out of there, along with any other women who wanted to come.
It was weird being back there, canyon carving down the winding roads past work gangs of people I had chanted and breathed with. There were very few vehicles at Bihari, and that day I didn’t pass a one on my way up the side canyon to Ginny’s facility. My phone vibrated again against my hip, but if it wasn’t Ginny, I wasn’t answering it. Madison had called me several times already, probably noticing I’d borrowed an overnight backpack of hers and stuffed some clothes and toothbrush in it. I hadn’t told her what I was doing because she wouldn’t go along with it. She’d say it was dangerous going back within those walls, and to let the club do its work.
The club was working too slowly for me. Ginny had received a visit at her composting plant from Bodhisattva, asking questions about how far along she was in her pregnancy. I didn’t want Knoxie to risk his ass, either. Last time he’d returned from there, well Bodhi had had a broken nose, sure. But I doubted he’d been shot in Nogales. I had a feeling it had happened up at Bihari. Lots of people up there were heavily armed with AKs and Uzis and other military grade weapons they theoretically shouldn’t have any use for unless they were planning on starting a major turf war. I had always questioned the necessity for that, especially now as I drove past several of those armed daimyos, and I had nothing more than a Swiss army knife to protect me.
Knoxie’s calls had started the day after I’d busted him humping that sweetbutt on the ink bed. He acted like nothing had happened—which, I guess, it hadn’t. I mean, I’d told him I wanted our relationship to be casual, strictly physical. I had pledged fidelity but hadn’t demanded it of him. So the only thing that had gone “wrong” was my heart had taken a wrong turn somewhere, and I loved Knoxie more than I’d let on, even to myself.
All his calls were the same. “Bellamy, give me a buzz. I can’t make it back to The Citadel for a few days. I’m on another Boner job. But I want to talk to you.” Next message. “Bella, where the hell are you? Maddy said you tore out of there with some clothes. Call me.” Next message. “Bella. Where the f*ck are you. I’m not taking calls but I’ll take yours the second I hear you. Don’t go running out there on your own. Don’t try to deal with these guys on your own. They’re dangerous, I tell you. You don’t know how dangerous.”
I was definitely in another dimension, my consciousness flying high above my bike along the canyon wall, up by the hieroglyphs. I’d been disassociating ever since the shock of seeing Knoxie getting up on someone other than me. It hurt too much to be inside my body, to feel and own these emotions completely, the jealousy, the fear, the rage. Shakti had been right about one thing. I had to transform this fear and jealousy into creative energy.