Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle (78 page)

Speedy smiled. “I know what you mean,” he said. “With them out of the picture, it's really anyone's game.”

“That's not what I heard,” said Big Red with a grin. “My sources tell me that this Crash character, some white guy from back east, has the Cossacks way out in front.”

Speedy could hardly contain his rage. “That bag of shit?” he said. “He won't last long.”

Big Red grinned. “What makes you say that?”

“He's made some powerful enemies.”

“Yeah, who besides you?”

“If I'm not wrong, isn't one of them you?”

Stew Bob's first job after that morning's meeting was to take out the trash and recycling from the night before, but he put it off for as long as he could. He hated going into the laneway after he had seen rats in there, but it was part of his job and he had to do it. As awful as the rats were, there was something that day that shocked him a lot more. Beside the dumpster was Scuffy's wheelchair, and beside it was Scruffy. His crumpled body lay in front of the wheelchair. Stew Bob—though he instinctively knew Scruffy was already dead—fell to his knees, trying desperately to revive his old friend.

News of Scruffy's murder put the Cossacks on high alert and they returned to the clubhouse for an emergency meeting. Weasel had been particularly affected by the murder of his old friend, who Ned found out was one of the founding members of the club. Scruffy had fallen on hard times since a motorcycle accident lost him the use of his legs, but the Cossacks were dedicated to him and they took care of him.

None of the Cossacks believed Scruffy's death was a botched robbery or other random event. Stew Bob voiced the opinion, shared by several prospects and hangers-on that Speedy could have been involved. The two had never gotten along, and now that Speedy had left the club, he could well have killed Scruffy after leaving the morning meeting, as a twisted sort of revenge.

Weasel wouldn't have it. Despite their differences, he still had a great deal of respect for his old friend Speedy. Besides, he said, he had called Speedy with the news and he had seemed genuinely shocked. And if he had killed Scruffy, why would he stay in town and accept calls from the club's top guy? “It wasn't him,” he said with a gravity that suggested an absolute finality to the discussion.

El Borracho mentioned the new club, the Tortured Souls, who had moved into Tucson. “They could be trying to establish themselves here,” he said. “A bold move like that would put them on the map.”

“Yeah, and it would also be a war,” Weasel said. “And from what I've heard and seen, they don't have any manpower or significant friends. It would be suicide on their part.”

Ned, who had been one of those who believed Speedy was to blame, mentioned that he had read about the Tortured Souls in the newspaper. “They are pretty small time,” he said. “But have more members up in Colorado and some ties to the Outlaws, who are a fairly big club out East, especially in the Chicago-Detroit area and in Florida.”

Weasel scoffed at that. “There are no Outlaws around for hundreds, even thousands, of miles,” he said. “And, from what I have heard, they're in a worse position than the Hells Angels and Bandidos. If there's a shooting war, they are not going to coming riding over the horizon to save the Tortured Souls like some cavalry troop in an old western movie.”

“Could it have been the Mexicans?” Ned asked.

“Which ones?”

“One of the other cartels,” he said. “If Jalisco is moving significant amounts of coke and meth through us, it might make sense for one of the others to get at us.”

Weasel contemplated that for a moment. “You have a point there,” he said. “But Scruffy has been retired for many years. He was of no strategic importance. I don't want to sound disrespectful, but his primary value to the club was sentimental.”

“Yeah,” piped in El Borracho. “If they really wanted to hurt our business, they would have killed you, Weasel.”

* * *

Big Red didn't like the Tortured Souls' clubhouse. It was plenty comfortable inside, but the ATF had filled it full of hidden video cameras and listening devices to make sure everything their agents did was ethical and by the rules. He spent as little time as possible in there and made sure to conduct business that actually mattered outside.

At the same time that the Cossacks were talking about Scruffy's death, Big Red and two of his men took a ride down to Coronado to look for the bathtub. Big Red justified the trip to the other two officers by telling them that he had gathered enough evidence to indicate the bathtub was a primary collection point for over-the-border drug smugglers.

It quickly became apparent that jeans and black T-shirts were a bad choice for hiking in the Southeastern Arizona desert heat. On their half-hour hike, they had run into two different sets of illegal immigrants with bulging backpacks. The officers agreed that they were probably carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of drugs on them, but they didn't arrest them or even report them for fear of jeopardizing their primary purpose. These couriers were small fish—something for Border Patrol or the local Barney Fifes to take care of. Their job, Big Red reminded them, was to bring down the big guys and anything that could compromise their identities would endanger that.

He had not yet revealed to the other officers that it was the Cossacks who were supplying the area with coke and meth. Keeping them busy and out of the loop allowed him time to think and plan out his own strategies. They did not know that the Cossacks' new star drug dealer also just happened to be a rat who was going to help Big Red get rich.

The three officers dressed as bikers were worn out by the time they arrived at the bathtub. Two of them sat, while the fattest, Frank “Lunker” West (originally from Seattle and still bedeviled by the Arizona sun), lay down in the shade. An outdoorsy-looking couple entered the area from a different trail but, upon seeing the Tortured Souls, decided to keep hiking.

“So this is the spot?” West asked. “Sure doesn't look like much.”

“It doesn't have to be,” Big Red answered. “All these guys need is a familiar landmark—meet me at the bathtub is a pretty clear sentence—it doesn't have to be the Eiffel Tower to be a meeting place.”

The other officer, Kellen Rogers (better known by his Tortured Souls nickname, “Dawg”), offered his opinion. “Yeah, when I was working in Cincinnati,” he said, “there was an old oak tree everyone knew about—after a while, you could say ‘meet me at the tree' and that would be enough.”

“So who's moving the stuff through here?” West asked. “Obviously it's one of the cartels moving it up, but who's distributing it on the streets?”

“From what I've been able to uncover, there are a number of gangs on the streets,” Rogers said. “Cincos, Los Toltecas, the Cossacks.”

“All Mexican,” Big Red pointed out. “And they only sell to other Mexicans.”

“That's not entirely true,” Rogers retorted. “An informant I have told me that the Cossacks are making very significant inroads in the . . .”

“The Cossacks?” Big Red scoffed as convincingly as he could manage. “Don't make me laugh. Those guys couldn't organize a piss-up at a brewery. At best they are mules, ferrying the stuff to the hub up in Denver.”

“Well, somebody's putting product on the pavement from Nogales to Tucson and points beyond,” piped West. “If it's not the Hells Angels and it's not the Cossacks, then who the hell is it?”

Big Red grinned. “Well, I guess it's our job to find that out, now isn't it?”

* * *

Speedy was in his office going over the payroll when he heard a knock on his door. “What is it?” he shouted. Alphonso, the bouncer who was also his primary assistant, entered. “There's a man here to see you,” he told him. “From Mexico, says it's very important.”

“You recognize him?”

Alphonso, who had moved to Arizona from Milwaukee only a year earlier felt awkward. To him, many Mexicans actually did look very much alike and he was honestly not entirely sure he had not met this man before. Quickly weighing the odds, Alphonso said that he hadn't.

“Send him in anyway.”

Speedy was pleasantly surprised to see Francisco “Frankie X” Beltran Vazquez, his cousin and a brother-in-law of his old friend El Guason. He instructed Alphonso to get some beer and invited Frankie in. “I guess you heard about me and what happened with the Cossacks,” Speedy said to him, prepared to apologize. “You'd have done the same thing, though. That Crash
pendejo
just pushed me too far.”

Frankie was surprised. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“I quit the Cossacks,” he told him. “I had to. That guy Poco Loco sent up here was screwing everything up, taking everything for himself.”

“El Espagueti?” Frankie chuckled. “I'm surprised he's still alive—always seemed like the ultimate fuck-up to me. I can't believe you let him push you around. Trust me, he won't be a problem.”

“You don't know, man,” Speedy said in his own defense. “He may give the impression he doesn't know what's going on, but he is pretty fucking clever under the surface.”

“I do know, my old friend,” Frankie smiled. “He's done, you can even kill him yourself if you want to.”

“But Poco Loco . . .”

“Is dead.”

“What?”

“Yeah, believe it or not, the Clown is dead,” Frankie said, grinning widely.

“How?”

“You won't believe this, but El Azucarero, we believe, was in the hands of Los Zetas,” Frankie said. “He led the naval infantry and the Federales up to the big house in the mountains near Bambuto. There was a shoot-out and Poco Loco took a couple—well—a couple dozen hits. Some of it was from a .50-caliber, so he was mostly just shreds when they were done with him.”

“I can't believe it, I really can't,” Speedy said. “But how do you know it was El Azucarero?”

“The fuckin' Zetas put a video up on YouTube bragging about it,” he said. “They claimed it was one of Poco Loco's closest confidantes who did him in, and after we counted all the bodies and the men behind bars, the only one missing was El Azucarero.”

“His family is going to get a nasty surprise, I'll bet.”

“Who cares?”

“What do you mean?” Speedy was shocked. “We must avenge the deaths of Poco Loco and the others.”

Frankie laughed. “Sure, whatever,” he said. “All I know is that this moves all of us up a couple of notches in the organization at the very least—and we don't have to listen to Poco Loco's annoying neo-communist speeches anymore. I, for one, won't miss him at all.”

Speedy acknowledged Frankie's pragmatic point with a chuckle. “I guess you're right. I think that all his politics were keeping us back anyway, nobody who wants to get rich wants to be told what to do by a communist. I sure as hell don't. It was keeping us from getting the best talent,” he said. “So who's in charge now?”

“Again, I have to say you are not going to believe this,” Frankie said. “It's El Cubano.”

“No way!” Speedy's mind reeled. El Cubano was Edgar Beltran Villareal, a first cousin of both Speedy and Frankie X. It was indeed good news. And the look on Speedy's face indicated to Frankie that he understood the sum and the gravity of what had happened.

“Slow down,
Jefe
. We can celebrate later,” Frankie said. “But now we have to make a few plans.”

“Are you staying up here?”

“Nope, I'm running the ranch house from here on in,” he said with pride. “El Ratón got popped. They were gonna give it to El Guason, but he's hitting the bottle pretty heavy, and they need him as a
sicario
—he's still the best we have. No matter how drunk he gets, he just seems to have a talent for killing people.”

“And me?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Frankie said. “You should stay up here and move product.”

“No, no, no, that's what that
pendejo
Crash is doing,” said Speedy. “I quit the Cossacks yesterday.”

Frankie chuckled. “You think those customers are loyal to El Espagueti?” he said. “It's drugs we're moving here, and these people have no other choice. We have them, they need them, and now, thanks to your
guero
friend, they know where to get them. They don't need him anymore, they're all grown up now, they can let go.”

Speedy laughed. “I'm pretty sure I pissed Weasel off pretty badly, though,” he said. “And no matter what anybody says, he is the Cossacks here.”

“And he knows how to make money and he definitely knows how to spend money,” Frankie said in a reassuring tone. “I'm pretty sure he'll welcome you back to the Cossacks. I think they're going to have a vacant spot soon.”

Speedy laughed. Things were looking good for him. Once Crash was out of the picture, he could rejoin the Cossacks. Or, if the offer was better, he could try the Tortured Souls. Either way, El Cubano would make sure he was well taken care of.

* * *

Weise laughed. Tovar shot him something of a dirty look. “What's so funny?” he asked.

“You,” he answered. “You are so excited to see this woman that you're actually speeding.”

Tovar laughed. “Shit, you're right—I actually am speeding,” he said. “But, I have to admit, I really want to know what she has to say.”

The agent and his intern were racing down Highway 19 to interview a woman who had called them that morning. She said she may have recognized the man in their flyer. They made a date to meet her at her home at noon.

It was a nice, well-manicured bungalow in the semi-exclusive Tanque Verde neighborhood in Tuscon's east side. Weise noted the Prius parked outside. They parked in the driveway and approached a woman who was out front, tending her sparse garden.

“Erin Scholtz?” Tovar asked.

“Yes, hello. Are you the man I spoke with on the phone?”

“No, I'm agent Tovar of the FBI, and this is my associate, Mr. Weise,” he answered as they both showed their identification. “But we are here about the telephone call.”

“The FBI?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Is this man dangerous? Is he a criminal? All I wanted to do was help him. Your advertisement said he was sick, that he needed his medicine.”

Weise told Scholtz that she was in no danger and that any information she gave would be totally confidential.

She looked skeptical. “I'm not sure it was even him, this man you're looking for,” she said. “Your advertisement said he was sick and needed medicine. The man I saw was the picture of health. He looked very happy, in fact.” She went back to tending her garden, forcing them to follow her.