Have Gun, Will Travel (The Bare Bones MC #5)(7)
“Yeah, well, apparently Riker ran out of employers willing to hire him, so he went to Tormenta. I don’t know if you remember, but Tormenta’s into human trafficking. Riker tried to nab Slushy’s daughter Gudrun and a couple of her friends. The Chinese Bamboo Boys are running that arm of his operation, but he’s got several other irons in the fire, of course.”
“You think Leo’s getting into human trafficking?”
Harte didn’t answer right away. He looked down, gulped the last of his whisky, and exhaled. He still didn’t look Sax in the eye. “Could be. Could be, man.” He finally raised his eyes to Sax’s face. “I was down at one of our warehouses in Winona about a month ago picking up some Russian ladies for the Ochoas. There was this f*cking, like, dungeon I’d never noticed before. I opened the trap door, and all these Mexican eyes were staring up at me. I asked Funkhauser about it”—Funkhauser was their long-standing sergeant-at-arms—“and he told me to never mind. I just never minded, Sax. I mean, ten beaner women? Who’s going to miss them, right?”
That was true. Harte could’ve thought they were being shipped off to be paid maids in mansions, or that the women had bribed someone to smuggle them across the border. But Winona was hellaway across the border already. They wouldn’t need to hide there anymore.
Sax asked, “Have you seen any Chinamen coming and going at The Drawing Board?”
“None, and none at any business meetings. I’m not saying we should go in with all guns blazing accusing Leo of human trafficking. I just know it’s something Panhead never would’ve stood for. Birdseye is all right. I only know him from runs around the Painted Desert, the Two Guns run, the Four Corners run, fish fries. You know the Tucson clubhouse was blown up by those f*cking ricemen, so Birdseye transferred up here. Several other people went to the P and E chapter, to the Citadel. We got their Prospect, Sock Monkey.”
Sax nodded knowingly. He still talked quite often to a couple of guys, to Woodstock, to Funkhauser. They were all brothers from the short pants days. “I think it’s pretty damned fishy what happened to Panhead. You say it was a bum beef?”
Harte held up a forefinger at the bartender to indicate that he wanted another. This was odd as hell. True, Sax hadn’t seen him often since he’d gone nomad. But Harte had never had more than one, maybe two beers. “It was completely strange, Sax. It came out of left field. Panhead was just moving some iron from one location to the next. Nothing unusual at all. It was obvious it was a major sting. Sock Monkey was the only one there, riding point on his scoot while Panhead drove the chase vehicle. Sock Monkey blazed through the barricades, so they only got Panhead. Sock Monkey’s the only way we even know what happened. Once Panhead was arrested, no one would let us talk to him or see him. No one’s seen him, Sax. He was indicted and sentenced all within a few months. He’s in maximum security in Tucson.”
“That’s f*cking weird. And no one else has been nailed? Panhead’s held his mud?” Sax doubted Panhead would sing like a canary, but one never knew in situations like this.
“As far as anyone knows, no one else. But everyone’s on f*cking edge, man. We’re in the middle of a heat wave, Sax, and we don’t need nozzles like Tormenta drawing attention to us.”
“I see what you f*cking mean. I couldn’t agree more, but Harte, I don’t have any power anymore. I know you seem to think Leo somehow respects me, but I have no control over him. He booted me from the club.”
“Yeah, but…didn’t you want to go nomad? That’s what Dad always tells me. That you preferred the lifestyle, the nomadic travelling around, that it fit in perfectly with your rock-selling, your geology or whatever it is you do.”
It stung that Harte didn’t even really have a grasp on what Sax did for a living. Sax had a PhD from the University of Michigan, so he was actually Dr. Saxonberg, if you wanted to get all technical. He needed to at least show Harte that he could go toe to toe with that bastard Leo. “I wouldn’t say I wanted it, Harte. Leo sort of pushed me in that direction. I never would’ve gone if Leo hadn’t wanted to get rid of me.” He could at confess that much.
Harte looked reflective. “Yeah, didn’t you vanish right after I accidentally knocked up that girl?”
Sax was glad Harte remembered. Harte had been only fifteen, and Sax had been kind of proud of him, in a weird way. He had lectured the hell out of him, but deep down he’d had that “that’s my boy” feeling of pride. Harte’s sperm just could not be stopped. “Yes, exactly. He thought we had different…parenting styles.”
Harte frowned. “He kicked you ‘out good’ because you had a different parenting style? That sounds just like my f*cking dad. He thinks he’s the dad of the century and, well, sometimes he’s not. Will you at least talk to him? Tell him what you know about Tormenta. Convince him that guy’s bad news.”
Sax agreed just to please the boy.
It was strange as hell, entering the premises of The Drawing Board again. Between the guns and drugs, The Bare Bones MC must’ve made enough money to afford a better clubhouse, like the P and E chapter’s Citadel, an old airplane hangar on an airfield.
Sax walked in first as though entering an old west saloon. Men on barstools turned to peer at him, but he didn’t recognize any of them. Well, this is f*cking disconcerting. I don’t recognize a soul. Harte was behind him and he wore his Bare Bones cut, so no one questioned him. Finally, at the first pool table, Funkhauser dropped his pool cue and his jaw when he got a load of Sax. They thug hugged, and Funkhauser asked the expected question.