Corruption (16 page)

“Welcome to Buford’s,” the server said. “What can I get ‘cha?”

“I’ll have a Buford’s burger, all the way, a large fry and a Coke.” A squirmy sensation took root in the pit of
Lucky’s stomach. Pre-indigestion or guilt?
Too much fat, too much salt, not enough vitamin A or C
, his conscience chided. Sounded like Bo.

“Sure, I’ll be right back with your drink.” The kid pronounced “right” as
“riiiiiiiigth”, in true Georgia style. He moseyed across the plank flooring, disappeared behind a door, and returned a few seconds
later with Lucky’s drink.

Lucky sipped his Coke and surveyed the room. Four men played pool in the back, swilling beer and sniping obscene comments at each other. Each wore a black
leather vest with
441 Cruisers
emblazoned on the back. Lucky recognized two of them from the material Walter supplied.

To the left, a guy sat with his back to Lucky, intent on a game of pinball, or whatever the hell the machine was. The pings and whirls could have been
anything. He also wore a leather vest, devoid of gang colors, and kept casting wistful glances at the bikers. A wannabe, then? A group of men in
construction garb got up from the next table, tossing dollar bills among the wreckage of their lunch.

The waiter brought his meal, setting down a ton of artery clogging fat before quietly turning away.

Forcing back his better judgment, Lucky munched his hamburger, pausing intermittently chew on a few greasy fries or wash down his mouthful with a swig of
Coke from a twice-refilled glass. Keeping his eyes on his meal for the most part, he snuck peeks at the man who’d abandoned the video games to
hang out with the pool players.

Sandy blond hair, dark eyes, scrawny build, and maybe a few inches taller than Lucky’s five-six. Ninteen-ish, maybe twenty, tops. Bingo.
He’d found Jeremy Wilkerson, also known as Jerry. Not part of the gang, but a hanger-on, and a possible way to gain admission into the inner
circle, or at least until hooking up with Bo.

The bikers laughed at something the kid said, and one slapped him on the back in an indulgent fashion, while another rolled his eyes behind the
boy’s back. Not an equal, then. More like a pet. Interesting.

Lucky moseyed over to the bar to pay his bill rather than wait for his server, ensuring the pool players got an eyeful.
Look at me, I’ve got nothing to hide.
Never glancing behind, he strolled out to the parking lot and climbed into the Malibu. First
contact, over and done. Now to find a drug store before indigestion burned a hole through his chest.

***

After days of self-induced digestive torture, Lucky lunched at Buford’s yet again, now set as a daily pattern. Saturday found the place packed.
Both pool tables had games going, and a wall of bodies obscured the video machines, many wearing the flaming 441 of the Cruisers colors. Damn,
they’d better not put any of those men on recruitment posters. Brrrr… Where was “Queer Eye for the Might-Be-Straight
Biker” when you needed them? Sheesh. When was the last time any of them had gotten a haircut from someone qualified to wield scissors?

No tables stood vacant. Lucky grabbed a seat at the bar and perused the menu, a pack of Tums secure in his front pocket. Maybe something less greasy this
time, like a grilled chicken breast with a side of coleslaw. Hell, breathing the air in here alone probably raised a man’s cholesterol levels.

He ignored the jostling next to him as someone pulled up a stool and sat down. Stale beer and cigarette smoke from the guy’s clothes momentarily
overpowered the burnt grease stench.

Somebody’s watching me.
A sidelong peep to the right revealed deep brown eyes staring back over a slightly crooked smile. Contact. Already. Yippee. “I seen you in here a
couple of days,” the guy said.

Lucky grunted and raised a piece of slivered chicken to his mouth, rolling his eyes up and pretending interest in whatever ballgame played out on the big
screen TV above the bar.

“I’m Jerry.” The guy thrust out a hand.

Lucky glared at the hand as well as the guy’s face, and Jerry withdrew the handshake. Guys like him were a dime a dozen and had swarmed around
Victor like fruit flies. Some had hoped to gain money, others basked in the glow of a rich and powerful man, and still others simply wanted to fit in. Far
too many found a place in Victor’s bed, briefly. If it suited his purposes, Victor used them, chewed them up, and spit them out. Some adapted,
hardening into the kind of man Lucky had become. Others didn’t make it. No need dwelling on them, they’d made their choices and were
beyond anyone’s help now.

Someone called his name, and the overeager gnat beside Lucky said, “Gotta run. Nice meeting you,” and buzzed off.

“Fuck off,” Lucky growled, too low to be heard.

He returned on Monday and so did Jerry. “What do you do?” the kid asked the moment Lucky deigned to turn his way.

“A little of this, a little of that.”

The guy propped his elbows on the bar, leaning into Lucky’s space. “I can get you a job running errands, if you know what I
mean.”

“How in the hell would I know what you mean?” Lucky gave the kid his best
leave me the fuck alone
growl. No need seeming too
overeager. Besides, all posturing aside, the kid annoyed the hell out of Lucky. How stupid could one be to get caught up with a bunch of drug traffickers?
Oh, wait. Yeah. Okay, they both came from less than stellar backgrounds and hung around with the wrong people, but no way was Lucky that annoying or
gullible at the kid’s age. No fucking way.

Lucky glanced around the bar, hoping to catch sight of Bo or Reyes, anyone but the kid. Oh, right. Ricky Getsinger, ex-con in need of a job. Time to play
nice. “What you got in mind?” Act bored, like the offer didn’t matter one way or the other. He reached down deep to pull up
the man he’d begun creating in O’Donoghue’s classroom if not long before, on his knees in front of Victor, awaiting his
judgment.

“Nothing big. A few deliveries, maybe.”

“I’ve done some errand work before. Got my CDL,” Lucky drawled, in his best county bumpkin voice. In his youth,
Lucky’d dreamed of becoming a long-haul trucker, and he’d gotten his first Commercial Driver’s License a few weeks after
signing onto Victor’s payroll. Only, the loads he’d hauled weren’t what he’d expected at fourteen, when
he’d eyed car haulers full of shiny new Mustangs with envy.

“Cool. I’ll talk to my guy and see what he says.” The kid dashed off, “easy target” written all over him.
Reyes merely took the misguided hero worship the kid didn’t even know he offered with every doltish smile. And fuck if Lucky hadn’t
once worshipped Victor the same way.

A few days later, when his patience neared an end, the kid showed up again. “Mat… my friend has a job for you.”

Thanks to a contact younger than most of Lucky’s socks, and probably half as smart, Lucky headed south the next day, though he still
hadn’t met up with Reyes. Or Bo.

Chapter 13

Asphalt crunched under Lucky’s footfalls as he crossed the parking lot to a shiny black F-150. What a beauty, and identical to the one
he’d driven here and parked a few feet away, clear down to the tags, registered to a fictitious construction company, this week. Last week the
twin Fords had been the property of a restaurant, according to O’Donoghue. Lucky clicked the key fob, opened the door, and climbed inside the
waiting truck, tossing his backpack onto the front passenger seat. If bound for Hell, what a classy way to get there.

Somewhere within this marvel of metal, fiberglass, and leather nestled a small fortune in contraband, undetectable by drug dogs or any device currently in
use by law enforcement. A rich customer had once brought a Mercedes into the body shop where Lucky had worked while in his teens, asking for a modification
to stash valuables. The shop owner installed a safe in a faux floorboard. As impressed as Lucky had been at the time, the hidey-hole in the Mercedes
didn’t come close to the work he’d overseen for Victor on far less deserving cars.

Nowadays, retrofitting vehicles equaled big business, and lucrative business at that. And the worst part? Even if they tore the truck apart, the cops
likely wouldn’t find a thing.

Gone were easily found hidden compartments. And hiding was only half the battle. The new designs meshed with the vehicle’s existing systems,
varied sequences acting as sophisticated combination locks. The stash box on Lucky’s old Mustang required using the cruise control at 60 miles
per hour, rolling down the right window, and hitting the eject button on the CD player. The F-150’s systems likely put the Mustang’s
security to shame.

Lucky twisted the key in the ignition and fired up the engine. A sweet purr vibrated through the dash. Eyes directly to the front, he eased the truck out
of the rest stop parking lot and onto the highway. Checking out the locale too thoroughly wouldn’t go well for him, a supposedly dumb ex-con, and
he might be watched as part of his test run. Bad guys were a suspicious lot. But any shady characters now starred in one of Keith’s many
recordings. The asshole did have his uses.

An hour later Lucky turned west on I-10 toward Louisiana. How’d he love to stop for some crawfish or boudin, maybe a praline or two. No time.
With fourteen hours and his every move likely monitored, he’d best stay on schedule. Rolling down the window let in the cool night air: the slap
of the breeze kept him awake.

Shortly after filling up the truck and his belly at a truck stop, Lucky sailed past Atlanta, riding I-85 and battling early morning shoppers at the outlet
park once he turned off the interstate. Another half-hour’s ride put him near Athens. Reyes’ apartment sat a few miles from the
drop-off point, but Lucky’s new employer didn’t trust him yet. Better to do an anonymous drop, and have someone more trusted collect
the truck later. Still no sign of Bo. Worry squirmed through Lucky’s gut. It’d been two weeks since Art’s accident. Two weeks
of an agent twisting in the wind alone, and strict instructions against direct contact with the bureau. Anything could have happened by now. And what role
did Bo fill in the trafficking ring? Lucky’s briefing said only that Bo had gained Reyes’ confidence, nothing more.

Lucky parked the truck behind a convenience store at the junction of 441 and 15, left the keys in the ashtray as instructed, grabbed his backpack, and
locked the door on his way out. He wandered across blacktop, eyes peeled for his unknown ride. A loping
whop, whop, whop
reverberated against the
building, a vision in black and chrome pulling to a stop a few feet away. Oh hell yeah! A 2011 model Harley Road King gleamed in the sunlight. Damn, what
he wouldn’t give for such a ride.

Despite his situation, he couldn’t help admiring the machine of his dreams. Judging by the added rumble, the pipes weren’t stock, and
neither was the wide touring seat, complete with passenger backrest. A pair of studded Mustang saddlebags hung down on either side of the back wheel. A
journey bag fitted over the backrest rounded out the extras.

The driver toed the kickstand down in a practiced move and hiked a leg to dismount the bike.
441 Cruisers
stood out on the back of his jacket. A
black helmet with tinted shield hid the rider’s face, and black leather enveloped his body from the neck down, save at the crotch where faded
denim peeked through a pair of chaps. Definitely a male, and a well-hung specimen. Sturdy boots completed the outfit. Walter’s intel suggested
thirty-two members of the motorcycle club. Lucky’s count at the bar brought the number up closer to forty.

At another time in life, Lucky might have climbed the biker like a tree for how well he filled out his leather. Now, the chaps merely reminded Lucky of Bo.
The biker dug another jacket and helmet from his saddle bags and didn’t say a word as he offered them to Lucky. Get on a bike with a stranger?
Lucky’s withering glare didn’t melt the face shield’s tint, and earned him a shrug from the stranger. Yeah, being watched.
Another fucking test to pass. Better to risk his life in the hands of a jackass than blow a case.

The jacket fit perfectly, and the temperature rose the moment Lucky zipped the padded leather closed. Next came the helmet. A few more weeks, and they
wouldn’t need leather to keep warm, but April had been unseasonably cool in Georgia this year. The biker climbed back on the beast, straightened
up, kicked the stand back against the bike, and turned his helmeted head toward Lucky while firing the engine.
Damn, I’d love to drive this thing.
According to Jameson, an undercover agent should always take his or her own vehicle, but if pressed,
should at least insist on driving and never relinquish control.
But hell, if Lucky owned that bike, he wouldn’t give up the keys either.
He braced a hand against the seat and climbed behind the driver, making sure to leave distance between them. Shoving his groin against a
stranger’s backside wasn’t an option.

No sooner did he prop his feet on the foot pegs than the bike shot across the parking lot. Lucky grabbed the firm body in front of him. The driver patted
his leg with a gloved hand and he let go.
Don’t go getting too friendly on me now, dude.

They leaned into a curve, the bike, biker, and Lucky in perfect accord. Fighting the natural motion might get them both killed, and many times
Lucky’d nearly lost control of his old dirt bike by a squirming brother on the backseat, struggling against gravity’s pull. A few more
curves, and he relaxed. Whoever drove handled the bike well.

He leaned back to enjoy the view. Pastureland whipped by, a riot of greens, pinks, and blues from wildflowers. The scent of fresh mown hay hung heavy in
the air. They left 441 for back roads. Athens lay the other way. Either they weren’t going to Athens, or the driver had another agenda.

The asshole got to ride one hell of a bike, and probably never did an honest day’s work. Might as well make him earn his keep. Lucky leaned up,
putting his mouth near the driver’s ear. He launched into a song his Grandma used to sing about a singing cowboy, complete with lots of off-key
yodeling. The driver didn’t even flinch, merely reached down and turned on a stereo. Country music blasted from front-mounted speakers. Lucky
sang louder, the driver turned the volume up until Lucky couldn’t hear his own voice.