Deadly Decisions (35 page)

•    •    •

The clubhouse was less than six blocks from La Taverne des Rapides, and, after half-stumbling, half-running that distance, it did not take long to find my car. Once inside, I locked the doors, then sat a moment, legs trembling, hands shaking uncontrollably, my mind numb. I took a deep breath and forced myself to move with slow, deliberate motions. Belt. Ignition. Shift. Gas.

Though lightning flickered, and raindrops battered the windshield, I broke all speed laws getting home. My thoughts were chaos.

Ryan had given his companion sound advice. An outlaw enterprise needs a strong reason to mess up even an adjunct cop like me. Retribution would be powerful and the organization would be out of business for an extended time. Unless the cop was wreaking major havoc, it made no sense and the man in the suit had understood that. But what about Ryan? Had sound
consigliere
advice been his sole motive?

What had just taken place? Had I stumbled onto Ryan in his new life? Was he there as a member of the pack, or did he have other motives? What did his actions mean? Had he humiliated me as a message that his past life was done and he now belonged to the other side, or had he done it as part of a scene designed to get me out of there safely? Had he put himself at risk?

I knew I should report the incident. But what would be gained? Carcajou knew of the clubhouse, no doubt had files on Pascal and Tank.

Carcajou. Claudel and Quickwater. My stomach knotted. What would they say when they learned how I’d literally thrown myself in jeopardy? Would the incident reinforce Claudel’s desire to have me removed as liaison to the unit?

What if Ryan was undercover? Could a police report threaten his cover?

I didn’t have answers, but I made a choice. Regardless of the man’s motives, I would do nothing to hurt Andrew Ryan. If the slightest chance existed that an incident report could harm him, I would make no report. Tomorrow I would decide, I thought.

When I got home Kit’s door was closed, but I could hear music through the wall.

Good call, Auntie. This is why you’re not a cop.

I threw my clothes on a chair and dropped into bed. As I did so, the thought hit me. What if Pascal had taken me someplace else? Sleep came much, much later.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I
SLEPT LATE, FINALLY WAKING AROUND TEN,
sore and achy. I spent the morning nursing myself with aspirin, tea, and hot baths, fighting off flashbacks to the night before. Though I had bruises on my legs and back, and a small cut on my neck, my face had escaped largely unmarked. After a late lunch I applied extra makeup, chose a turtleneck sweater, then went into the lab and spent the day on routine matters. I made no report.

When I got home Kit and I had a quiet dinner. He had no questions about my previous night’s outing, and I assumed he was unaware that I’d been gone. I did not bring up his storming out, and he offered no explanation.

After dinner I decided to do laundry. Pulling the basket from the bedroom closet, I added the clothing I’d worn the night before. I sorted, then loaded the washer, holding back items requiring special treatment. My stomach tightened when I lifted the shirt with the ketchup blotch, the scene still vivid in my mind.

I spread the shirt and began spraying the stain, the product jingle for the spot remover bouncing through my head.

I’ll Shout
you
out, you sonovabitch. I squeezed the handle. Phhht!

I pictured the smirk on Ryan’s face, remembered his finger jabbing my chest.

I squeezed again. Phhht!

Read that, Shakespeare! Phhht!

My hand froze and I stared at the pattern. The squiggles were not random, but formed two perfect sixes.

Read that, Shakespeare. Shakespeare. The sonnets were a passion with Ryan.

I recalled something from a long time ago. High school. Mr. Tomlinson. Senior Honors English.

Was it possible?

I raced to the bedroom bookshelf and pulled out a volume.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
Hardly breathing, I opened to the sonnets and flipped to number sixty-six.

Come on, Bill, let it be there.

Tears welled when I read the line.

And right perfection wrongly disgraced . . .

Wrongly disgraced.

It was a message. Ryan was saying that all was not as it seemed.

Right perfection.

Ryan was not a point man for the dark side! He had not gone over!

What then?

Undercover?

But why hadn’t he contacted me?

He couldn’t, Brennan. You know that.

It didn’t matter. Suddenly I was certain that whatever Ryan was doing, the man I knew remained beneath. In time I would know the full story.

And I was equally certain I would never report the previous night’s events. I would do nothing to compromise Ryan’s cover.

I closed the book and went back to the laundry. Though I understood that covert operations could last months, or even years, at least now I knew.

A smile spread across my face as I bunched the shirt and tossed it into the washer. I can wait, Andrew Ryan. I can wait.

Feeling happier than I had in weeks, I shook off the vision of Pascal and Tank and went back to the photos I’d abandoned the night
before. I’d just booted up the disc when Kit appeared in the doorway.

“I forgot to tell you that Isabelle phoned. She’s going out of town and wanted to return your call before she left.”

“Where is she going?”

“I forget. Something to do with an award.”

“When is she leaving?”

“I forget.”

“Thanks.”

His eyes shifted to the screen.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to clean up some old photographs so I can view the faces.”

“Whose?”

“Savannah Osprey is in one shot. And the man who was killed last week.”

“The guy who was stabbed in jail?”

“No. The person the police think was his victim.”

“Awesome.”

He moved into the room.

“Can I see?”

“Well, I guess there’s nothing in the way of sensitive information here. As long as you promise not to discuss these things with anyone but me, you can pull up a chair.”

I brought up the Myrtle Beach photo and indicated Savannah and Cherokee Desjardins.

“Man. That dude looks like a reject from the W.W.F.”

“World Wrestling Federation?”

“World Wildlife Fund.” He pointed at Savannah. “She’s sure no ole lady.”

“No. But it’s not uncommon for bikers to drug young girls and hold them against their will.”

“And she’s no beach bunny. Man, her skin’s the color of a bed-sheet.”

I had a thought.

“I want you to take a look at something.”

I closed the picnic photo and opened the police-check photo.

Kit leaned in and studied the scene.

“Is that the same dude?” He indicated Cherokee.

“Yes.”

“We still in Dixie?”

“South Carolina.”

“Looks like a road bust.”

His eyes moved across the group, then locked onto the cycle at the periphery.

“Holy shit. Sorry. When was this taken?”

“That’s unclear. Why?”

“That’s the same chopped hog we saw in the funeral picture.”

My pulse stepped up.

“Are you sure?”

“Auntie T, that is the sweetest piece of Milwaukee iron I have ever seen. You could really ride the edge on those wheels.”

“That’s why I was asking about the other picture.”

“Did you find it?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s the same bike.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Can you zoom it up?”

I magnified that part of the photo.

“Jesus. That is five hundred pounds of thunder.”

“Tell me how you know it’s the same bike.”

“Like I said before, it’s an old FLH, a police touring cycle that’s been stripped and customized. That’s no big deal. But it’s the way he did the chop that’s so bitching.”

One by one he again pointed out the bike’s wonders. “This dude wanted a truly raw machine, so he changed the power-to-weight ratio.”

His finger touched the front of the bike.

“He lengthened the wheel base and raised the front end by installing longer front forks. Man, those puppies must be twenty inches over stock. He probably cut out a section of the neck of the frame. You’ve really got to know your shit to pull that off.”

“Why?”

“If you screw it up the bike will split and you’ll find yourself eating cement at high speed.”

He indicated the handlebars.

“He used dog bones, steel struts to raise the handlebars.”

“Mm.”

“The guy that did this was definitely not interested in comfort. He’s riding a springer front end, that’s one with external springs, not hydraulic shock absorbers, and a ‘hard tail’ frame.”

“A hard tail?”

“It’s a rigid frame with no rear shock absorbers. It’s called a ‘hard tail’ because your ass really takes a beating.”

He pointed to a set of pins at the front of the bike.

“Check out the highway pegs.”

I must have looked blank.

“He’s got extra foot pegs up front, and a forward-positioned custom-shift-and-brake assembly so he can stretch out his feet. This guy is into serious puttin’.”

“And you’re sure this is the same bike we saw at Silvestre’s grave?”

“Same righteous hog. But that’s not my only clue.”

I knew I was in over my depth, and said nothing.

“Look at this.” He pointed at the gas tank. “He’s sculpted the tank with some kind of molding material. What does that look like to you?”

I bent close. The front end did look odd, but the shape brought nothing to mind. I peered at it, forcing my brain cells to draw meaning from the tapered form.

Then I saw it.

“Is that unusual?” I asked.

“It’s the only one I’ve ever seen. The guy’s a regular Rodin with bondo.”

He stared at the screen, mesmerized. Then, “Yeah! Jammin’ in the wind sitting on a snake’s head. Hee ha—”

He stopped short and an odd look crossed his face. Then he leaned in, back, then in again, like a bird sighting on a curious insect.

“Can you bring that guy’s face up?”

“The one on the bike?”

“Yeah.”

“It will blur as I enlarge it.”

“Try.”

I did, then went through the same manipulations I’d performed with
Claudel. As lines and shadows shifted, congealing pixels into recognizable features, then reordering them into meaningless patterns of color and shape, I gradually realized what my nephew had spotted.

In twenty minutes I’d done what I could do. During that time we had not spoken. I broke the silence.

“What made you recognize him?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe the jaw. Maybe the nose. It grabbed me as I was pointing out the snake’s head. Before that I hadn’t even noticed the rider.”

We stared at the man on the marvelous hog. And he looked into space, intent on a happening long since past.

“Did he ever mention riding with the Angels?”

“He’s not wearing colors.”

“Did he, Kit?”

My nephew sighed.

“No.”

“Does he hang with them now?”

“Oh, please. You’ve seen the guy.”

Yes. I’d seen the guy. On a country road in St-Basile-le-Grand. Across a dinner table. On the late-night news. And in my own home.

The man on the bike was Lyle Crease.

W
ORDS AND IMAGES FLASHED IN MY BRAIN.
P
ASCAL’S FACE IN
neon and shadow. George Dorsey mumbling my name to a paramedic. A glossy eyeball.

“. . . are you going to do?” Kit asked.

“Call Isabelle, then go to bed.” I closed down the program and slid the CD into its holder.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Sometimes when thoughts are ricocheting inside my head, the best strategy is to lay back and let them find their own patterns.

“Aren’t you curious?”

“Very. And I
will
find out if Crease has ties to the Hells Angels. But not tonight.”

“I could ask around.”

“That is precisely what you will
not
do,” I snapped. “He could be a dangerous man with dangerous friends.”