Authors: Mark Everett Stone
Inside the box was another thirty thousand dollars. However, the money wasn’t the prize; the false ID was. The previous spooker had a phony ID I’d created in ’97, but it was for Tariq al-Muhammad, which would be a red flag in the post 9/11 world, so I needed a new one in case I came under scrutiny. The Jude Oliver persona was burned and I needed to become someone new.
Say hello to Morgan Heart.
Morgan had a SSN, passport and even an old Colorado driver’s license, as well as a Mastercard and Visa. The cover was flawless, the best money could buy.
“Can I see that?” asked Mike, pointing at the knife.
I handed the cylinder over. “Careful. You’ll slice yourself up a treat if you’re not careful.”
“Been kind of curious about this.” He pushed the button. “Don’t see anything.”
“One molecule thick is far too small for the naked eye, but it’s there.” I smiled as Mike gingerly handled the cylinder.
“What powers it? I imagine it must use a lot of juice, keeping the thread carefully spooled and contained in the magnetic bottle.” Mike handed the knife back.
“It’s surprisingly energy efficient, actually. Runs on two watch batteries and they only need to be changed once a month under normal usage.”
He stood and brushed the dirt of his knees. Instead of his usual black outfit with collar, he had dressed like a lumberjack—blue jeans, red-checked flannel shirt, boots and a brown Gore-Tex jacket. We had plenty money to spare. I could have dressed us in Armani.
“I’m surprised, Mike. You haven’t asked me what’s next.”
“We’re going to get the Grail, I know that,” he said quietly. “Now that I understand what’s at stake, I know we have to see this thing through.”
“Yeah.” I pocketed all the IDs except the driver’s license and stood, leaving the box where it lay. “Just making sure.”
“No worries, Jude.”
“Morgan.”
“What?”
I held up the outdated driver’s license. “It’s Morgan Heart now. My Jude Oliver persona is history now.”
“Morgan Heart?”
“Yeah.”
“Morgan
Heart
?”
“You said that already.”
A cheesy smile spread across his face. “That is the lamest alter-ego I’ve ever heard. Sounds like a porn name.”
“It’s what was available.” Grumble grumble. “What do
you
know from porn names?”
“I had a life before my calling,
Morgan
. You would’ve been better off with Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent!” His laughter bounced off the tired brick buildings that surrounded the garbage-strewn lot. People walking by on the sidewalk paused for a moment to stare at the big unshaven man with the funky moustache.
“Laugh it up, Mr. Funny Guy,” I mumbled, flashing a rueful smile. Whatever may come, Mike was still my friend and all was right in the universe.
The laughter wound down like a spring that was slowly losing tension. “Okay, Morgan, where to now?”
“To finish what we started, man.” I stared at the cold gray sky, watching the plumes of my breath billow forth. “We go to Bend.”
Bend, Oregon. Why did it have to be Bend? Personally I would’ve rather gone back to Odessa, and that place was a pit. Bend parks itself on the high plains desert area east of Eugene and just north of the Deschutes National Forest. In the summer, the grass is dry, the juniper trees look scrofulous and the only thing growing that’s not a bilious sage green lives right next to the river that runs through town where all the expensive houses are located. Living in one of those makes you the elite among cockroaches.
Okay, a little harsh, a little pessimistic. But not by much.
The old truck trundled past downtown where the touristy shops and restaurants are located, catering to whatever yuppie trade there might be and took us to the outskirts, where the real people with real information could be found. The information we sought couldn’t be provided by the drinkers of appletinis and cosmopolitans.
Feighan’s stood on the crossroads of Hopeless and Helpless, catering to people who liked their beer cold, their TV sports played at volumes even rock bands would cringe at and prided themselves on the thickness of their chest hair. That included the women.
We walked into a room lit by bad fluorescents and cheesy neon beer signs. Even though it was a hair past noon there were at least twenty people drinking, playing pool or watching satellite TV, drinks clutched in fists, complexions sallow and tired. Mike and I moseyed up to the bar (always wanted to say that) and sat with elbows resting on a none-too-clean bar top.
“What can I get you folks?” asked a youngish bartender whose ponytail barely contained his curly black hair. A yellow t-shirt with FEIGHAN’S stretched tight across his broad shoulders and chest.
I held up two fingers. “Buds, please.”
When the bartender came back, I held up a hundred dollar bill. “The change is yours for some information.”
He smiled, revealing very even, very white teeth through the scruff on his face. “You cops?”
Mike shook his head. “Nope.”
The young man took my hundred. “You guys watch too many cop shows. I would’ve been happy with a ten.” Chuckling, he made change and stuffed the bills in his front pocket. “It’s good business to cooperate with the cops. What do you want to know?”
“Wonderful,” I groused. Mike took a sip of bear to hide his smile.
“Really, mister, bartenders aren’t like in the movies. We’re just average Joes looking to make a few dollars here and there. Just ask your questions.”
A soft sniggering came from my left. It was a wooly old man in a Red Sox ball cap sporting a walrus moustache. He seemed to find the whole conversation humorous. A second later Mike joined in.
Red faced, I asked, “We’re looking for a biker gang by the name of Demon’s Blood.”
The bartender’s tan faded. “You don’t want to mess with those idiots, dude. Not if you want to keep your nose attached to your face.”
Mike piped up. “Bad guys?”
“The worst,” the old fellow next to me chimed in, his voice made husky by cigarettes. “They don’t come into town much, don’t shit where they eat, you know, but them boys like to raise a ruckus all through the state. Heard they messed up a fella in Lebanon so bad he can’t walk no more.”
I kept my eyes on the bartender. “Where do they hang their hats?”
“Mister, you’re committing suicide and I won’t help a man kill himself.” Two fingers dipped into his front pocket and started to pull out the folding change he’d stuffed there.
It was Mike who put an end to the bartender’s resistance. “Son,” he drawled. “If we don’t take care of the business we have with the gang, a lot of people are going to wish they committed suicide.” From his flat top to his boots, he radiated confidence and resolve.
It was enough for the young man, if just barely. The change disappeared back into his jeans. “In Terrebonne. Their leader owns a bar up there.”
Mike’s eyebrows shot up. “Their leader? Alexander?”
“No one knows his name,” the old man jumped in. “Calls himself Shiv.”
Not anymore,
I thought darkly. “What’s the name of this bar?”
“The Hard Way. That’s all I got, dude.” The bartender left to pour a beer.
Mike shot me a look. “The Hard way?” he whispered.
My voice was equally quiet. “Lousy name.”
“So how do we handle it?”
I shot him a toothy grin. “I have the beginnings of a cunning plan.”
“Oh, Lord.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mike
If I were a cursing man, I would’ve laid a blue streak all the way from Bend to Terrebonne, but I had put that part of my past behind me when I left the Army. Morgan’s (funny how easily I’d stopped thinking of him as Jude) plan had me scared spitless, but to save Alexander’s soul from the infernal parasite, I had to put fear behind me. Just like in Iraq.
Danzinger’s handled the distribution of beer and liquor in the area, including the Hard Way. It didn’t take much to find out when the next delivery of beer would be heading to the gang’s club—only a judicious use of ten grand of Morgan’s cash, mainly, a bribe to the dispatcher for a uniform and a temporary assignment as a delivery driver. The next scheduled delivery was for the next day, so we holed up in a hotel until it was time for action.
Once my cover was in place, Morgan disappeared to “arrange for backup” should I need it. That had me worried, but there was nothing for it. I just had to trust him.
The beer truck handled like a pig on a skateboard, but I managed to steer the darn thing all the way to Terrebonne, a blip on the road so small that if you blinked, you’d miss it. Thanks to the jolly dispatcher, I had an easy-to-read map to get me to the bar.
If Bend had a hope of green, Terrebonne abandoned that hope a long time ago, some time just before the dawn of Mankind. The only thing that separated it from Las Cruces was the winter wind that howled down the flat land.
Toasty in a dark blue Danzinger’s jacket, I pulled up to the back entrance of the bar. The dispatcher had given me the code to the surprisingly sophisticated electronic lock that safeguarded the back door. Made me wonder why such a crappy looking little place needed one.
I try not to be judgmental, but the Hard Way looked like the kind of place where the bartender swept up teeth as well as trash at the end of business. The patchy roof needed re-shingling; the parking lot resembled the surface of the moon while most of the windows contained wood, not glass. Nevertheless, the front and sides of the building had enough Harleys packed together for a Sturgis rally—a border of chrome, steel and rubber.
After opening the truck for delivery, I started to punch the code for the back door. Halfway through the sequence, it opened. A bearded, grimy man in dark biker leathers and a scraggly beard leaned out.
“Where’s Dave?” he asked gruffly, beady eyes narrowed.
I kept my tone noncommittal and shrugged. “Not available today.”
He gave me a squint while I studied him in return. Big, flabby, tattoos on neck and chest, biker leather ripped at the shoulders so the fat arms could swing free. Long, tangled brown hair. Not a boss, just a flunky, I surmised.
His study of me was mercifully brief. After all, I was wearing the Danzinger uniform—the navy-blue pants, short-sleeved shirt and ball cap. Despite that, I could feel his cold appraisal. Apparently I passed muster because he pushed the door open wide and propped it with a cinder block.
With a smile and a nod to the troglodyte, I unloaded a keg that I placed on my shoulder with a grunt and carried in.
With the big lummox in the way there was barely enough room in the dimly lit storage area for me to maneuver the keg around. For some reason he was staring at me, his thick lips parted.
“What?” Was my fly undone?
“Most guys use the hand truck,” he uttered softly, pointing to a once blue dolly.
I silently berated myself. This was supposed to be a recon mission and I had just showed off by hauling a 156 lb keg of beer on my shoulder like it was nothing. Smiling, I asked, “Where’s the cooler?”
The fat man pointed to the right and I made my way among the boxes of liquor and bottled beer, stacked high. Covertly glancing here and there, I noticed no window to the main room, just a battered wooden door painted black. There had to be some way to scope out the main bar.
One my third keg trip, I hit on an idea. “You want me to take a keg up front? Maybe clear out an empty?”
Just as I reckoned, here was a man who had no problem with someone else doing the heavy lifting. “Sure,” he said with a gap-toothed smile that did nothing to improve his looks. “Follow me.”
Keg perched on my shoulder, I complied, trailing him through the black door and into the bar proper. Not much, really, just a typical one-room place with a dozen tables, two pool tables and a grimy counter that ran the length of the room. Bikers of every size, shape and color crowded the place (apparently the Demon’s Blood was an equal opportunity gang), causing such a ruckus that my ears threatened to shut down for good. Fat guy led the way to a trio of lonely looking taps lined against the wall.
Then the place got quiet and I felt the first shiver of dread trill through me. Carefully I set the keg down and looked around. Dozens of eyes were upon me, some speculatively, some apprehensively.
“Can I help you folks?” I kept my voice mild, light.
More silence. I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot then turned my attention back to the keg, which I stowed in the cooler underneath the taps. An empty in one hand, I was headed toward the door to storeroom door when I was stopped by a voice I recognized.
“How did you do that, man?” The voice was hard-edged and growly, with a deep undercurrent of menace. When I’d heard it last, it had come though Leslie Winchester’s cell.
“Do what?” I asked, not looking up.
“Look at me when I talk to you!” Alexander screamed and I jumped like I’d been goosed.
Alexander Winchester had his mother’s nose and eyes, but little else. Rangy and lean instead of bulky and muscular, with long dirty blond hair and acne-scarred cheeks. The leader of the Demon’s Blood didn’t look like one. Oh, he was tall enough and had the sleek grace of a panther, but there was no look of … competence in his face. Instead he had the air of a petulant, spoiled child who had been given everything he wanted and hated the givers because it was never enough. Cold, cold green eyes sparkled like pools of viridian cruelty. A purple Crown Royal bag was tied to the belt of his dirty blue jeans and one veiny hand caressed it like a lover.