Have Gun, Will Travel (The Bare Bones MC Book 5) (23 page)

“Well, apparently someone
was
stupid enough to buy some SizErect.” BG’s face was blank. Sax filled in for him. “Penis vitamins.” No response. “Erection enhancement pills.”

“
Oh!
” The BG nearly lost his composure when he realized what Sax referred to. He flung his weapon arm in the air, all set for a giant belly laugh, but he quickly remembered himself, and leveled it at Sax while he laughed. “Oh! That’s too fucking much! You’ve got to be kidding me. Wait until I tell Mr. Tormenta! Manuel is going to be
so gone
.
Hijo de puta!
What a giant screw-up!”

The guy practically wheezed with merriment while Sax gauged the situation.
Maybe if I can tell another joke…

“
Tonto del culo!
Are you fucking shitting me? Hoo-ee! Wait until I tell—”

Sax’s jaw fell when the guy abruptly stopped laughing. The sagger’s eyes turned to bowling balls, although the mirthful look was still frozen on his face. Now
he
dropped his piece to the ground beneath the boulder. His torso jerked once, and he pitched face-first onto the grass next to his iron, one of his unlaced shoes flying the opposite direction.

Sax’s first instinct was to leap to retrieve his own piece. Had someone shot the sagger with no noticeable bullet hole? The answer became apparent as Sax straightened up. A taller, thinner silhouette stood in place of the BG. The guy leaped down from the boulder in one graceful motion, Sax readying his own pistol at the shadow.

“Sax,” Harte said, as though he killed a man with a Bowie knife every day. He was sheathing the bloody knife. Who brought a knife to a gunfight? Well, it had certainly worked.

Sax gestured impatiently with his Glock. “What the fuck, Harte? This is a fucking
showdown
, not a fucking video game. What are you doing here?”

Harte pointed at the dead sagger. “Does this guy look like he’s playing a video game?” He stooped to pick up the BG’s piece, which he shoved into his waistband. Harte looked uncombed, unwashed, as though he’d been partying, not taking care of himself. His white T-shirt wasn’t even tucked in. He had to lift the hem to shove the piece into his pants.

“No, I mean, thanks for saving my ass. But you’ve got to get out of here. How long have you been following us?”

Harte’s face twisted. “Since I found out my fucking father is a fucking snitch for the ATF, that’s how long! I was too busy hoovering meat—yes, I know you saw me—to bother wondering what my dad was doing meeting with a fucking guy with a
microphone
in his brain bucket, and look what happened! It took
you
to out the asshole! We all took a vote, and Leo is out bad, man. There’s just no saving himself from this mess. And yes, before you ask, I’ve been drinking. I can’t handle all the revelations that’ve come down the wire. Now let’s fucking get up there and get Tony Asshole Tormenta.”

Sax would’ve protested more—Harte was in no way ready for a major shootout like this—but there was some powerful bellowing coming from the mesa. Sax pivoted and had taken several strides when Wolf came crashing into the bush, clanking like The Tin Man.

“No one else is coming out of the hatch—oh, hey, Harte—even though I tossed another grenade down there. But who was that shooter aiming for, Tobiah?”

Sax suggested, “Maybe Slayer got him? Haven’t heard from either one of them in a few minutes. Let’s head toward Slayer. You. Harte. Stay the fuck here.”

“I’m not about to. I need to prove my value to this club some fucking way. I’ve been relying on being Leo’s son up till now. That’s not going to cut it anymore.”

That part was true, and Sax didn’t have time to argue, so the men made their way from flat boulder to flat boulder, leaping in the direction Slayer had been yelling. Pride welled in Sax’s chest at the idea that he was on a job with his son. Harte was standing up for his sweetbutts, and that was the way it should have been from the start.
The family that shoots together stays together.

It didn’t take long for Slayer to appear, but this time someone had an arm wrapped around his supermodel throat, a gun barrel pressed to his temple.

Tony Tormenta
. It had been years since Sax had seen the sociopath in person. Now, Tormenta wore barely any bling, and was clad in a LeBron James jersey with an Oakland A’s cap setting jauntily on his square head over his do-rag. Tormenta shouted, “I’m going to shoot your gay boy associate if you don’t let me get away, you
gabachos
!”

Sax yelled back. “
Pinche guey!
Go ahead and shoot him! He’s no fucking associate of ours!” He was taking a risk, calling the guy’s bluff. And with the
pinche guey’s
background in murder and mayhem, the only thing stopping him from burying Slayer was the knowledge that the three Bare Bones men would bury
him
the second he did that.

Tormenta seemed to be aware of this. He started backing away from the bikers, apparently heading toward some getaway vehicle. “I let no one stand in my way! Especially not you
gabacho
motorcycle men with your ugly, scraggly women!”

“Don’t listen to this
pinche guey
!” yelled Slayer in a tremolo. “I am willing to sacrifice my life for the betterment of others, if it means you get to take down this
gilipollas
!”

Sax advanced quicker than Tormenta could retreat, closing the gap between them, his weapon at the draw. “Not a chance. In case you didn’t notice, Slayer, it’s three of us against one of you.”

“Yeah!” yelled Harte, a few paces behind Sax. “Who’s to fucking stop us from—”

Sax didn’t know if it was an accident, but Harte’s piece went off, hitting Tormenta in the shoulder. Tormenta twisted to one side, but didn’t lose his grip on the former actor. Mayhem ensued, the air suddenly full of flying rounds.

The lone shooter toward the water tank made himself known, squeezing off so many shots that his location was obvious. Sax shot blindly in that direction as rounds whizzed seemingly through his cut. He knew he might be hit and not even know it with all the adrenaline racing through his nervous system. Wolf, too, took a position to nail the shooter. Eventually they did—Sax never knew if it was he or Wolf who took out the sniper, who after all wasn’t that good if he couldn’t kill them all. But when the bullets dispersed, the guy was lying flat on his back.

“
Le madre que te parió!
” shrieked Sax, nearing his breaking point by now.
The mother who gave birth to you!
He wasn’t used to this shit like the other Bare Boners were. He turned his rage on the spot where Tormenta had been, but the kingpin was getting away, Slayer still stumbling under his arm. Harte took another shot at Tormenta, which missed.

“Let him the fuck go!” Sax took one last stab at ending things peacefully.

Tormenta twirled around. Now Sax could see the Corvette which had apparently been driven out of some underground garage. “You fucking
gabachos!
” Tormenta shrieked like a woman. “Look what I’ve done to your associate! And I’ll do much worse if you don’t let me go now!”

“Eyew, God,” said Wolf. It took a lot to gross out the Prospect, so Sax squinted to see what the fuck Tormenta was holding up. Wolf raised his binoculars just as Harte breathed,

“It’s his fucking
ear
. He cut off Slayer’s fucking
ear
.”

Sax held his hand toward his son in a “steady” signal. “No more shooting. He’ll do much worse if we keep filling him full of lead. We’ll get him. He’ll probably throw Slayer out of the car once he doesn’t need him anymore.” Louder, he yelled, “You win, Tormenta! Get the fuck out of our sight! I don’t want to see you around my club ever the fuck again!”

“Fine with me!” Tormenta dragged the poor misbegotten Slayer toward the Corvette. “Who needs your stupid club anyway?”

“Finish me off!” Slayer lamented. “Just do it and get it over with! Would that your knife was as sharp as your final ‘no’!”

Sax actually had to grin a little that Slayer was apparently quoting some poetry as he was dragged toward his doom. He admired the guy’s straightforward thinking with a missing ear.

“We’ll come find you, Slayer!” Wolf yelled through a cupped hand.

“I know you will! You guys have been honest and true through thick and thin! Your brotherhood will never be tainted or broken by the scummy likes of wifebeaters like this here—
ugh!
”

Sax had to physically put his hand on Harte’s forearm to prevent him from taking another shot as Tormenta kneed Slayer in the gut before shoving him in the passenger door. The three men could do nothing but watch helplessly as the sports car pulled out, Tormenta flipping them the bird out the driver’s window.

Then Wolf pointed out something. “I’m sure that road winds back around and hooks up with ours. I hope Tormenta doesn’t shoot Tobiah or Crybaby in the head.”

As they jogged back across the flat boulders, Sax noted a strange thing.
His cut was full of holes.
He felt at least three spots where rounds had torn the leather, but had failed to pierce his skin, as far as he could tell.

What. The. Fuck
.

I wonder what Bee would say about this. Maybe it’ll renew her faith.

It sure as hell had renewed Sax’s.

BEE

I
spent the day in Sax’s garden.

I had been the gardener at the abbey, so it was a natural move for me to borrow money from my old church spiritual director to purchase the Flagstaff nursery. I felt safer, more secure, outdoors surrounded by plants. Indoors, I was vulnerable, for some strange reason. Outdoors, I could lay down and sleep and nothing bad would ever happen to me. I didn’t know why that was.

The more I thought about it, it became clear. My father had left when I was about seven. My mother was a very unstable woman, in retrospect at least bipolar, with violent tendencies. Madison and I had bonded over our horrible mothers who could vie for the Mommy Dearest of the Century award. My mother would often chase me, for reasons I can’t recall at all now, out of the house and into the yard. Sometimes she’d give up there, lock me out of the house, and I’d just sleep in the yard. Often, though, she would kick me out of the house entirely and I’d wind up sleeping in unlocked cars or up in the hills, another memory I shared with Madison. Down in Cottonwood, she had slept in canyons. In Flagstaff, I slept under the Ponderosa pines, not a pleasant way to live in the winter. Once, I woke up to a bear sniffing at me. Another time I stumbled across a rattler sunning itself. It coiled up, rattled and hissed at me not three feet away. I brained it with a rock and watched it for five minutes as it looked cross-eyed at me, flicking its tongue. Finally it slithered away, thank God. Although I thought the whole time about how cool its skin would look on my wall at “home” if I had to brain it again.

But the outdoors was obviously safer than my house, so I sat in the garden tended by Sax’s former roommate Lila. Cypress trees were twisted into fantastic shapes, as though blown by a constant wind on the coast. Lavender and heather among the stones gave the feel of an English garden. I couldn’t see Sax tending the garden without Lila. I was even so confident as to think
He needs me to do it.
Our father in heaven, how arrogant a woman could become once collared and claimed by a macho biker. I had to smile at that. I was getting a swollen head, one of the deadly sins always taught to us.

He trusted me alone in his house. That displayed a giant step for the standoffish rolling stone I had fallen in love with. The only disappointment was that he probably thought himself too old to have kids with me. I had sacrificed a lot when joining my order, mainly my overriding desire to have a family, to have children.

I called my assistant at the nursery to find out how things were going. I was pretending even to her that I’d had appendicitis—something that wouldn’t affect me too heavily later on, something that didn’t leave too many tracks to cover. You can imagine my guilt when she told me there had been an outpouring of gifts and cards from customers. Our entire office, she said, was crammed with potted orchids, cards, and balloons. At least a hundred people had come by to give something for me. Tears came to my eyes. She texted me a photo of our office. There was even a giant stuffed lemur from a customer who knew I loved lemurs. My religious training required that I feel horribly guilty over having lied. But really, now. Wasn’t being pursued by a cartel kingpin
much worse and scarier
than having your appendix out? I tried to keep telling myself that, but I still felt guilty that they were sending me cards when I was perfectly fine and sitting in an Adirondack chair in the middle of an English herb garden.

For the first time in my life, I felt genuinely safe and secure. There was no fence around Sax’s property, but I couldn’t see the closest neighbor, either. I could have sunbathed nude and no one—well, maybe a few hikers—would have seen me.

It was ironic that I felt protected and sheltered right when all of my senses should have been on high alert. In retrospect, it was my own lack of awareness that was my downfall. I’d always sort of been lost in my own little dream world, another thing the nuns used to chastise me for. I was out back with a copy of Men’s Fitness—the only reading material other than mineral handbooks worth my interest around there—while evil lurked in the fucking bushes.