Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(39)
This bucolic idea went out the window when Ford added, “I believe you if you say my f*ckwad brother was spotted with Zelov and Weaver. They’ve been trying to get his product for years, so he probably caved and went over to the other side. Well, as far as I’m concerned, Driving Hawk’s got a huge target on his back. If he had anything to do with this f*cking f*cked-up heist, he’s actively against the family. We’ve got to kill that alliance now.”
Uh-oh. The truck job. I told Maddy from the corner of my mouth, “I guess we’d better not go light up that bowl.”
“Nuh-uh,” Maddy agreed.
Ford angrily jammed the END button on his phone and focused all his ire directly on me. “This is club business, sister, so it doesn’t leave this room. A truck coming from Ochoa’s pot plantation was just jacked near Show Low and the driver killed.”
I gasped. Killed? From what little I’d heard of the plan, I did not think that was part of it. I hadn’t dwelled much on it, but I could never imagine Lytton killing anyone. He would never wear the “Filthy Few” patch like Ford had since age seventeen. Lytton had a worse childhood than Ford, but he had a more sensitive demeanor. He may have been a scrapper, a fighter as a teen, but now he was just a mellow pot farmer. I’d even seen a Grateful Dead CD in his house, next to Great White, Lynryd Skynyrd, and Los Lobos discs.
Don’t get me wrong. Lytton was bad to the bone, just like Ford. He just had an acute sensitivity to the world around him. He may have been somewhat of a selfish jerk when I first ran into him, but already I’d seen changes in him. My self-esteem wasn’t high enough to think I had anything to do with his transformation, though.
Maddy stepped up for me. “Why are you angry at her, Ford? Do you think she had any knowledge of it?”
Ford narrowed one eye at me, assessing. “I don’t know. Did you have any knowledge?”
Jesus Criminey! He was sure putting me on the spot. Luckily, Lytton had a similar secretive credo as Ford, and I barely knew anything. “I just knew there was a truck job. That’s it. A truck job. That could mean anything.”
Ford arched his eyebrow even higher. “So he is in bed with The Cutlasses?”
Again, Maddy defended me. “Ford! She knows nothing other than what she told you. You know how it is. Do you think he runs around discussing club business in bed? Old ladies never know anything, to maintain their plausible deniability.”
Ford nodded at his wife. “Well played.” Behind him, the handsome French Canadian Faux Pas and the inked rebel with the high and tight hair, Ziggy, had never looked more menacing. Faux Pas had just come into a fortune by taking Slushy’s advice and designing a zombie video game. It was so realistic due to Faux Pas’ proclivity for gore that instead of being a money laundering scheme, it had actually made a mint. I had seen these guys goofing around, playing air guitar at concerts, cooking, kissing their old ladies, sitting on toilets, but right now they just looked downright menacing.
Maddy took the ball and ran with it. “Anyway, why would Lytton kill an Ochoa driver, even if he was in on the heist? That sounds more like the work of that Isosceles Weaver *.”
Everyone nodded then. “True,” said Turk. “Iso Weaver likes to take guys to the ground just for the hell of it, even when it doesn’t make good business sense.”
“Yes,” said Faux Pas. “Remember that time Weaver killed that Baal’s Minion and rolled him up inside the gym mat at Gold’s?”
“Right,” reminisced Ziggy. “They were workout buddies, but Iso got mad the guy had lost more weight than him.”
Turk added, “And it’s widely known Weaver put down that guy who showed up on Google Maps.”
“Right,” said Maddy. She explained to me, “The Google Maps satellite picked up a dead body on the railroad tracks between here and Cottonwood. At first everyone thought it was just some bum, some meth addict, but then Iso’s stamp was found on his forehead.”
“Stamp?”
Maddy said, “He wears this coat of arms signet ring, claims it’s from his father’s Scottish ancestry or whatever. He likes to leave his stamp on his victim’s foreheads. It’s got a shield or something.”
I actually became nauseous when Maddy said that. It reminded me of how Iso had looked at me in the greenhouse when I hadn’t pulled my tank down yet—or even after I’d pulled it down. He had still leered, almost as though he was taunting Lytton to do something about it. Lytton had, as far as I was concerned, shooing the guy out of the greenhouse. It was no big deal. Every club had their perverts, I imagined. The Bare Bones used to have a sergeant-at-arms named Riker. Some people walked around with toilet paper stuck to his foot, but that guy had showed up for a meeting at Ingrid’s once with an anal douche bulb sticking out of his back pocket. I knew, because Madison had told me what it was. And what it was for.
Ford said, “Yeah, that Google Maps thing was unfortunate. Goes to show how technology can nail you these days. Regardless.” He sliced the air with his hand. “June, I can’t stop you from seeing that colossal toolbag Lytton. Women are going to go where their rampaging hormones tell them to.”
“Hey!” cried Madison.
Now Ford pointed at Maddy. “You. I’ve got to get over to Ochoa’s and get more intel on this job that went totally sideways. Of course they stole our entire shipment of product for Joint Effort. Julie and Brunhilda are down the hall in the nursery with Fidelia but they can only watch her for another hour.”