Ike watched as Dome and the other three bikers shuffled backward toward the door. Once the four of them were out of striking distance, he bent down and whispered in the blond man’s ear.
“I’m gonna let you up, but if you even raise your eyebrows funny, I’m gonna open you up like the first deer of hunting season, you feel me?”
“You let me up and you don’t kill me, you know how this ends, right?” Grayson said. He spoke as loud as he could with the side of his mouth pressed against the Formica.
“I know you trying to save face with your boys, but if I ever see you around here again, there won’t be enough left of you to put in a Ziploc bag. Word is bond. I don’t sell no wolf tickets,” Ike whispered. Grayson didn’t respond. Ike pulled the machete away and took a step back and to his left. Grayson stood and put his hand against his neck. He bore a hole into Ike, and Ike gave it right back to him.
“You better call some of your gangster buddies, BG. Get you some silverbacks up here. Oh yeah, I seen your ink. You gonna need all them porch monkeys to back you up. We’re the Rare Breed, motherfucker. We gonna burn this goddamn place to the ground and then piss on the fucking ashes. Then I’m personally taking a shit right in your bitch’s goddamn mouth and make you watch,” Grayson said. Ike heard Jazzy inhale sharply when the blond biker mentioned her, but she didn’t flinch.
Grayson took his hand away from his neck and flung it toward the floor. Drops of blood flew from his palm and fingertips and splattered across the concrete.
“Blood for blood, nigger,” he said. He put his stained hand to his lips and blew a kiss at Jazzy. Ike pointed at the door with the machete.
“You need to do more walking and less talking,” Ike said. The blond biker smiled. Jazzy pulled back the hammer on her .38.
“See you soon,” Grayson said.
He turned his back on Ike and Jazzy and walked out the door. His fellow club members followed him. Dome stopped and gave Ike a reproachful shake of the head before he, too, exited the store. Once he heard their bikes fire up he put down his machete. He could hear Jazzy making a wet keening sound. The gun in her hand began to tremble.
“Jazz, give me that gun,” Ike said. Jazzy didn’t acknowledge him, so Ike gently plucked the pistol from her hand and eased the hammer forward before shoving it in his pocket. Jazzy stood next to him with her arm still outstretched.
“Jazzy, they’re gone.”
“They coming back, ain’t they?”
“I don’t know,” Ike lied.
“I think I’m gonna throw up,” Jazzy said before running to the back. Ike went to the front door and locked it. He closed his eyes and put his hand against the cool metal surface to steady himself. There was a moment last night between him and Buddy Lee unrolling the rug but before they grabbed the hacksaws that he thought that might be it. He thought maybe they could grind that boy up and it would fill the festering black hole in their hearts. For an instant he thought they could just tell themselves he was the one who had killed their sons. Let that be the end of it. Let them go back to what was left of their empty lives with the knowledge they had evened the scales.
That was bullshit. He knew that now.
There was no turning back. There was no path that led anywhere except down a long road as dark as your first night in hell and paved all along the way with bad intentions. They could call what they were seeking justice, but that didn’t make it true. It was unquenchable, implacable vengeance. And life, inside the graybar and out, had taught him that vengeance came with consequences.
Those bikers would be back. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a few days. But they would be back. They’d come roaring through town strapped and looking for a war. He needed to be ready. He didn’t know how and he didn’t know why, but he knew they were tied up with what had happened to Isiah and Derek. He knew it in his bones.
They’d come back looking for a war. He was going to give them a fucking massacre.
TWENTY
If there was one thing Buddy Lee had learned throughout his various stints in and out of jail, prison, county lockup, and drunk-tank holding cells, it was that you never, ever volunteered any information to a cop. It didn’t matter if you were guilty or not; you didn’t give them anything. They would tell you what they wanted or what they suspected you of soon enough. They were getting paid to ask questions; you didn’t get paid to answer them.
He sat back against the couch, crossed his legs, and waited for LaPlata to tell him why he was here interrupting the nap Buddy Lee desperately needed.