Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(18)
I couldn’t tell much about the extent of his land due to acre after acre of pines. We reached a house that was surprisingly low-profile, just a two-story frame job that couldn’t have even been two thousand square feet. I was prouder than ever of Lytton for not being a show-offy boor. He rode a Harley because he truly enjoyed it, not to impress anyone with his cooler-than-thou lifestyle.
Of course, just as I was removing my lid and thinking how unpretentious Lytton was, some slut wandered out onto the front porch. I don’t normally call other women sluts, but this one was so glaring and blatant, she probably enjoyed being called a slut. Her tiny lace camisole seemed designed specifically to highlight her, well, headlights. Her miniskirt was more like a handkerchief, and her eyeliner was smudged like a shopkeeper’s ledger.
She draped herself over a banister and smiled lazily at Lytton. I could detect no expression on his face, and he lifted a hand to me, I suppose to bring me closer to him. I came tentatively—I hadn’t expected other sluts to be lying around, although of course it made sense for a single, well-to-do pot farmer living in isolation on a mountain.
Lytton said, “The house is just a house, so let me show you the greenhouse, the clone room.”
We walked down a narrow path between the trees. I said, “You said Doug Zelov told you about Cropper being your father. I remember Ford and Cropper talking about The Cutlasses. Ford’s not going to appreciate it much if you do business with The Cutlasses. They’re kind of mortal enemies, from what I gathered.”
“I’ve never dealt with The Cutlasses on purpose, if that’s what you mean. They keep trying to force me to make deals with them, to help them.”
“If I recall correctly, The Bare Bones blew up some warehouse of theirs not far from here, maybe ten years ago.”
“I remember that. I was just going away to MIT, but my stepfather complained the roof down about hooligans near his property trying to kill each other.”
“Well, it’s no big secret that Ford built the bomb that blasted the thing sky-high. I remember my brother Speed was prospecting for them, but he blew his mission to be their lookout, and some Cutlasses stumbled in and nearly wrecked the entire job. Speed wound up joining the army because he thought he was such a loser as a biker.”
We paused before the greenhouse doors. I wanted to catch Lytton’s attention before we got all distracted by pot plants, humidity, and lighting. I held his plaid sleeve between thumb and forefinger, stopping him. “Are you sure you know what you’re demanding from Ford? He’s not going to suddenly acknowledge you as his brother without also patching you into the club. Do you know what that involves? I don’t think they’ll let you just walk the walk. They’re an outlaw club, Lytton.” I had to laugh then. “But I guess you were kind of an outlaw up here, before they legalized weed.”
His wide smile seemed genuine. “Thanks for being concerned about me. I admit I was pretty half-cocked at first, just reacting out of anger and panic. I’ve had more time to think now.” He nodded with confidence. “I know I want to be part of The Bare Bones.”
If they’ll have you. The Bare Bones that I knew wouldn’t look favorably on some stranger popping up out of the blue, even if he turned out to be related to the President. They were going to make him earn those colors. Nobody just patched in thanks to nepotism. They had made my brother Speed wander in the desert without food for three days on peyote to earn his top rocker, a truly biblical task that had nearly killed him.
Inside, I breathed in the pungent aroma of the plants. They really were quite beautiful, just a sea of slightly moving chartreuse, as though you could see them growing. For about an hour Lytton showed me his system, talking about feminizing seeds, color spectrums, and selective light training. There was a lot more to it than I ever imagined. Lytton mentioned things like perpetual harvest, vegetative stages, and top shelf genetics. I admired his recycling method of drip irrigation.
We were over by his experimental bog garden. He had levelled out the bottom and lined it with sand, then installed pond liner.
“Is this Alfagrog?” I’d seen the porous ceramic material in koi ponds.
“It sure is.” Lytton seemed proud that I knew much of what he was talking about. We were speaking the same language, a speech that would have been gibberish to outsiders. “The bacteria are cleaning up the water as we speak.”
By this time, especially in the enclosed atmosphere of the greenhouse, waves of fever were washing over me. I estimated my temperature easily at a hundred and three by then. Of course I’d taken my antimalarial drugs while in country, but there were always mosquitos that were developing resistance to it. That’s why they were constantly coming up with new drugs, to stay one step ahead of the damned buggers.
Lytton must’ve seen the sheen of sweat on my forehead. He creased his brow and stepped closer to me, holding me by the upper arms. His proximity was a complete and total aphrodisiac, even in my feverish state. His sepia eyes glimmered fiercely like one of those hypnotic mesmerists in the back of old comic books. “Are you okay? You look weak.”
I would never admit to ill health. In the Peace Corps people who got sick off every tiny insect or piece of raw wildebeest liver don’t last long. Being Teflon tough was the name of the game in Africa. However, I didn’t try to squirm out of his clutches. “Oh, I’m fine. So I presume the dissolved oxygen level needs to be very high for your bacteria to survive.”