Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle (2 page)

Jason tried to get him to simmer down but that actually egged him on more. “Look you fuckin' skank, I paid my fuckin' money and I came here to see some skin, not some dancing,” Tyler shouted as he imitated Kelli's tentative steps. “Do your fuckin' job!”

Kelli, who was extremely nervous to start with, lost it. She retreated to the back of the stage and started crying.

“Jesus fuckin' Christ,” said Tyler with an exaggerated flourish of frustration. “Do I have to come up there and show you what you have to do? Do I?” With that, he put his right foot up on stage and prepared to climb on.

That was enough for Ned. He bolted for the stage. Lessard started to go after the kid, but Steve grabbed him.

Ned was no bigger than Tyler, but a lot stronger. He seized him by the shirt with his left hand and threw him back into his chair. He didn't say anything. Ned turned to look at Kelli, but she looked away. While he had his back turned, Tyler lunged at him, hitting him in the hip with his shoulders. Ned bounced off the stage as Tyler slipped and landed in a heap. Enraged, Tyler got back up and let out something of a roar as he lunged back at Ned. Instinctively, Ned grabbed a beer bottle by the neck and slammed it into the back of Tyler's head as hard as he could. Tyler went down hard and didn't get back up again.

Everyone was silent. The DJ cut the music. Kelli ran off the stage. Two dancers came out of the change room to see what was going on, then turned around and went back. The Chinese guys with the turned up collars ran out of the building and down the street. Grizzled old Hank remained seated at his place in back and pretended to have suddenly acquired an interest in Major League Baseball as it played on the bar monitor. Buddy looked at his feet and waited for it all to be over.

Jason was in shock. He couldn't talk, couldn't move. Ned sprang past him to see what condition Tyler was in. He'd landed face-first on the lip of the stage, chipping both of his front incisors, then had fallen on his right side on the tiled floor. A pool of thick, dark blood was slowly widening around the back of his head. Ned put his hand under Tyler's head to take a look at his face. He was surprised at how light it felt, how little resistance his neck gave to his lifting and turning of Tyler's head. The skin on Tyler's face was a pale color Ned had never seen before, almost blue. His eyes were rolled up into his head so that only the white showed. Ned instinctively knew that if Tyler wasn't already dead, he would be soon and that nothing could stop it from happening.

Without thinking, he turned at looked at Jason. When their eyes met, Jason snapped out of his trance.

“You killed him!” he shouted. “You fucking killed my friend! Call an ambulance! Somebody call the police!”

Annoyed, Steve excused himself from what remained of his meeting and walked over to the scene. Johansson followed him. Steve then put his arm around Jason, turned him away from Ned and Tyler, and said: “Don't worry, son, your friend is going to be fine; why don't you come with my associate here and we'll take care of your friend.” Steve then turned to Johansson and said, “You make sure our friend here has everything he needs, I'll initiate CPR and call the police and ambulance.”

Johansson put his arm around Jason and led him to a door behind the bar that had an “employees only” sign taped to it. Confused and frightened, Jason neither struggled nor agreed; he simply complied.

Once Jason was out of the room, Steve stepped over to where Ned was still holding Tyler. “It's a shame when these drunks fall over and hurt themselves—but accidents do happen,” he announced, loud enough for everyone to hear. Buddy laughed nervously. “Alright, let's clean him up; until we're done here, everybody gets a free trip to the VIP room and two . . . no, three free drinks.”

As the patrons and dancers filed out of the room, Lessard went to guard the bar's front door and Steve dialed his cell phone. Ned couldn't make out exactly what he was saying, but he could tell that he was ordering someone to come to the bar immediately. He understood from his tone that Steve was more exasperated than worried.

When Steve finally hung up and came over to Ned, he just glared at him.

“I'm sorry, man . . . ” Ned began.

Steve wouldn't let him finish. “I'll say you're sorry,” he scolded. “You are indeed a very, very sorry sight.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Not only do you kill a guy in my bar, making a huge fucking mess, but you did it in front of witnesses,” he continued. “And do you know what the worst part of it is? You did it over a fucking woman. What an asshole. You should know by now no woman is ever worth putting yourself in danger for.”

“I—I think he's still breathing; maybe we should call an ambulance.”

Steve sucked air between his clenched teeth. “Uh—that 's not going to happen,” Steve shook his head. “He's dead, or just about—he's way too far gone. Even if by some medical miracle they kept his heart and lungs going, he'd be a fucking vegetable—and nobody should have to live like that.”

“So what do we do?”

“Well,” Steve paused. “I guess it's up to you to put him out of his misery.”

“Kill him? I can't do that. I've never . . . ”

“Sure you have—you've actually already killed this guy,” Steve told him. “All you're doing now is making it easier for everyone, including him.”

“How do I do it?”

“Do I have to do everything around here?” Steve asked, as though Ned were a petulant child who refused to clean his room. “I would suggest you do it quickly and quietly—look, he's not moving, never will again—just put a damp cloth over his mouth and nose to cut off his breathing.”

Ned walked over to the bar and grabbed the bar rag. He went back to Tyler and held the white cloth—already stained red from the blood on Ned's hands—to the young man's nose and mouth.

Just as Ned began to apply pressure, he heard a loud bang. Startled, Ned dropped the rag and fell backwards into a table, knocking it, and three chairs, over.

Steve started laughing. The noise had come from some of his men—Dario Gagliano, Dave Peters, and “Little” John Rautins—coming into the bar to help. Gagliano had a habit of making big entrances, and he kicked the bar's outside door open. He figured that the situation inside the bar would be tense and thought it would be funny to scare the shit out of whoever was in there.

Lessard positioned himself by the door. Gagliano immediately recognized what was going on. Although many in the Death Dealers considered him a total asshole, he had a knack for acting without fear or remorse in tough situations. He was a bold and decisive man, and that's why Steve depended on him for jobs like this. “Looks like we had a little accident,” he said, laughing at his own half-joke.

“Don't step in,” Steve said. “He's got to take care of this himself.”

Ned, surrounded by the other men, knew he had to go through with what he started. He picked up the bar rag and held it over Tyler's nose and mouth. He pressed silently for about two minutes. Tyler convulsed once.

“Dude,” Peters said quietly, “I think he's done.”

Everybody but Ned laughed.

“Okay, now for the hard part,” Steve said, once they all quieted. He instructed Peters and Rautins to clean up the place. They both knew the drill and started unpacking the mops and sponges from a nearby closet, complaining all the while.

Ned sat in a chair. He just wanted to sit and collect his thoughts. Steve wouldn't allow it. “Get up, lover boy,” he ordered. “You made this mess, you have to take care of it—pick him up and follow me.” Without looking back, Steve went back to the employee washroom.

“Well, pick him up,” said Gagliano impatiently. Ned put his arms under Tyler's neck and legs. “Not like that, faggot!” Gagliano shouted. “He's not your girlfriend—over your shoulder.” Peters and Rautins laughed. Ned complied.

He followed Gagliano into the room Steve was in and paused. “Throw him in there, asshole,” Gagliano growled, pointing at the bathtub. Steve sighed in an exaggerated display of exasperation. Ned had always wondered why Foxes had a bathtub in the employee washroom. He originally assumed it was for the dancers, but they had their own washroom attached to their change room. He placed Tyler down in the tub.

“Yeah, put him down gently,” Gagliano scoffed. “You don't want to hurt him.”

Regaining his composure, Ned looked at Gagliano. “Okay, what do we do next?”

“‘We' don't do shit; other than watch you clean up the mess you made. Here.” He handed Ned a knapsack. “The head and hands go in this. Tie up the rest and wrap it in this chicken wire—you'll find the wire cutters . . . uh . . . over here—then wrap it in a blanket and come get me.”

He got up to leave, and turned his head. “Don't come out until you're done,” he cautioned. “And clean yourself up for Christ's sake.”

He tossed Ned a large black garbage bag, and then threw in a T-shirt, tan canvas pants, socks, shoes, and a faded blue sweatshirt. “Put all your clothes in the bag, and throw this stuff on when you're done,” he said. “You can keep your underwear.”

As Steve headed into the VIP room, he saw Kelli, who had put her street clothes back on, leaving the bar. He didn't try to stop her. He asked Peters how long it would take them to get the bar back in shape. They told him forty-five minutes. He grabbed a beer and went into the VIP room.

Back in the washroom, Ned asked Gagliano if he had ever done this sort of thing before. “Sure,” he answered. “It's part of the job.” Ned offered him five hundred dollars if he'd do it for him now. Gagliano laughed. “No fuckin' way—Steve said you had to do it, so do it.” Though trying to sound amiable, his speech still came out threatening. “Besides, you should keep your money; there are a lot of people helping you out tonight—including me—and they are all going to expect something in return.” He turned pensive. “Think about it, Peters and Little Johnny are in there cleaning up the blood and shit you spilled, and I'm in here teaching your stupid ass how to stay out of jail, ya stupid fuck.” He laughed. “If you were a full member, no problem, we'd do it out of love; but you aren't and if you don't smarten up, you never will be—so get cutting.”

Ned picked up the hacksaw, lined it up on Tyler's right wrist and started to cut. “You're probably gonna need a couple of blades to get through—gets tough when you hit the bone.”

Gagliano stood back to let Ned get on with the job, then asked, “So what's the deal with you, anyway?”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“You know what I mean. I know you work for Steve and I hear you make good money,” he paused, and then he lost interest before the kid could answer.

“Ah, don't worry about it,” He waved off his question and went back to instructing Ned on the proper way to disassemble a corpse.

After closing, Johansson, Lessard, Gagliano, Peters, and Ned sat silently at the bar drinking beer. Nobody felt much like talking. Steve came out of the VIP room and approached them. “You know what you gotta do,” he said. “So go do it; I'm headed home.”

Peters stood up. “I feel like partying,” he said. “Who's coming to my place?”

Everyone left with him, except Gagliano and Ned.

“Okay, lover boy, let's go,” Gagliano said. “We got some work to do; I'll pull the car around and you bring out the package.”

Ned winced and ran his fingers through his hair. But he knew he had to do what he had to do. He went back into the washroom and assessed the package—or packag
es
to be more precise. Tyler's head and hands were in a knapsack, his body was wrapped in chicken wire, and a blanket and Ned's own clothes were in a garbage bag. Ned correctly assumed that the head and hands were separated from the rest of the body because they were much easier to identify. Put together in a smaller package, they would be much easier to dispose of than an entire body. The body, without its head and hands, could be just about anyone.

He tried to pick up the body and couldn't. The chicken wire had not only made him much heavier, but had also stiffened him, making him a much more awkward package. Ned grabbed the knapsack and the garbage bag and headed outside.

Gagliano was waiting for him in the driver's seat of a black, six-year-old GMC Jimmy. Ned motioned for him to lower the passenger-side window. “It's too heavy,” he said.

Gagliano couldn't hear him. He was listening to Black Sabbath's “Paranoid” at full volume.

Ned shouted again. “The body—it's too heavy!”

Gagliano put his index finger up, indicating that he wanted Ned to wait until the song was over. Once he was satisfied it was, he turned the radio down. “Alright,” he said. “What is it?”