“I heard it at work too, though,” Jackie lied. “I said something about popping down to Daisy and the girls at the water cooler shook their heads and told me I didn’t want to do that.”
“Your shop’s gone anti-Dog,” Maggie said. “And everyone knows it. Nobody seems to know why, though. After all, I’ve dropped thousands of dollars in here over the years; I can’t imagine why anyone would turn away that kind of patronage.”
Ramona dampened her lips. Her chest heaved beneath her green embroidered apron. The Fear was getting hold of her, turning her inside out. “No, I wouldn’t…”
Maggie sighed, made a show of pushing her sunglasses up on her forehead. “Let’s be honest here, Ramona, okay? Can we?” She leaned an elbow on the desk, comfortable, but disappointed, the air of an old friend who just didn’t understand. “We saw those Carpathians come in here the other day. And then there’s this talk about how you don’t want us coming in. Now me, from the outside looking in – you have to know how that looks to me. It looks like you’re picking sides.”
“No.” Ramona’s eyes bugged. “I’m not. I don’t want to be involved in” – she made a helpless gesture – “whatever you’ve got going on with them.”
Maggie smiled sympathetically. “I get that. But here’s the thing: not taking sides is still taking a side. Because if you let them in, and turn us away, that’s saying you’re down with the Carpathians.”
“No–”
“And I can’t say I blame you, because you don’t know all the facts.”
Her brows lifted. “What facts?”
“The Dogs and the Carps are nothing alike, really,” Jackie said. “And it all boils down to history.”
Ramona looked dazed.
“The Dogs have been around since the late forties. They got started in London, built themselves up there, began setting up chapters in the US. It’s all about tradition with the Dogs: a self-sustaining legacy. Working in harmony with hometowns. It’s a proud tradition for our boys.”
“But the Carpathians,” Maggie said, rolling her eyes. “Rednecks with some eastern European blood in them somewhere, looking to move themselves up in the world. Guys like that don’t want to work hard, build their name, their reputation. They want to attack an existing group, and supplant them. The Larsen family goal is to wipe out the Dogs, and then they’ll be the reigning MC in Knoxville. And you can trust me, they won’t have any of the same public interests as the Dogs. These aren’t one-percenters, Ramona. These are the guys who show up in the middle of post-apocalyptic movies and run people down with meat hooks. Now, is that who you want to support? Is that the business you want in here?”
Ramona glanced down at her hands, her fingers knotting around the handles of her scissors. “I’m not choosing sides,” she said in an exhausted voice. She lifted her eyes and gave Maggie a meaningful look from beneath her brows. “I don’t care what’s going on. With either club. I think the whole thing’s stupid. I’m just trying to keep my shop open.”
Maggie asked, “What? You can’t pay your lease and the Carpathians offered to help with that?”
“No.” But Ramona swallowed, glancing away, throat pulling tight. No, that wasn’t it, but it wasn’t far off the mark.
“Did someone threaten you?” Jackie asked.
Silence.
Yes, that’s exactly what had happened.
Maggie pulled a scrap of dentist office reminder postcard from her purse and jotted her cell number on the back. She laid it on the counter, beside Ramona’s shivering hands. “I want you to call me, if you decide you want to talk about what’s going on.”
No response, but Ramona pressed her index finger to the edge of the card. She’d think about it; she’d lose sleep thinking about it.
Maggie slid her sunglasses back in place as they exited, sunlight blanketing them and burning on the bright top of Harry’s head across the street.
“So they’re threatening to take kneecaps on Main Street,” Jackie said. “That’s bolder than we thought.”
Fielding brought two young uniforms with him, a fresh-faced girl straight out of training and a boy with shoulders too big for his issued shirt. They flanked him, wide-eyed, twitchy, a little bit in awe of the sprawling complex around them. At some point, someone had told them bikers were greasy, broke, and disorganized. They hadn’t expected all of this.
Mercy noticed them talking to Aidan out in front of the bike shop. Aidan sat sideways on the seat of a customer’s bike and was smoking, sunglasses hiding his eyes. Mercy could see the female cop giving him the up-down look and liking what she saw. Clearly, she hadn’t expected one of those greasy, broke, disorganized outlaws to look like Aidan Teague.
Mercy half-smiled to himself and kept his head down, buried deep in the guts of the machine he was working on.
He didn’t escape notice, though. A few moments later, he heard footfalls behind him and Fielding said, “Lécuyer. Let’s take a little walk.”
Mercy passed Aidan on his way out, and they traded smirks. Fielding walked farther away than he had before; he and his lackeys led Mercy to the edge of the shop parking lot, where it turned into the wide drive that spanned the complex.
“You must have some super-secret shit to tell me,” Mercy said as he drew to a halt and shoved his hands in his pockets. He stood with the sun at his back, so his shadow swallowed the sergeant up completely. It was a small satisfaction.
The cop made a disgruntled, schoolmarm face. “I figured you’d appreciate some privacy given the…sensitive nature of our conversation.”
