He bolted from the room.
Ghost and Walsh settled into the two spare chairs, and Dave landed in the desk chair with a deep, worry-laced exhale. He rubbed his face a moment with both hands. When he dropped them to his lap, and opened his eyes, he said, “Look. Jimmy’s a good kid, but he does stupid shit sometimes. You’ve got a boy, you understand.”
“I do. I also understand that, when he does stupid shit, there are consequences.”
Dave’s expression hardened. “So that’s why your people attacked them? It was just spray paint. That doesn’t justify roughing them up!”
“I already told you: it wasn’t my people.”
His jaw clenched.
“Did he say that? When he told you what happened, and he got to the part about a Good Samaritan stepping in, did he tell you who it was?”
Dave hesitated.
Ghost motioned to Walsh, who pulled out his phone, cued up the surveillance video Ratchet had sent him an hour ago, and set it down on the desk to play for Dave. There was no sound, but via the camera they’d hidden outside of Bell Bar, the action was unmistakable. Two men all in black, with painted faces, came out of nowhere, dropping down onto the two teenagers with backpacks. A scuffle ensued, with the boys clearly the losers. A crowd gathered. And then here came Carter, flying his colors, the patches on his back clearly visible as he engaged with one of the thugs – Tenny, by the look of him – and a fight ensued.
Tenny was a damn good actor, and he’d coached Carter well beforehand. If he hadn’t known it was staged, Ghost would have thought it looked real.
“That’s Carter Michaels,” Ghost said. “He took the city to state his senior year at Knoxville High. He’s a Dog now, and he spared your kid and his friend an ass-beating.”
The video ended, and Dave looked up. “Who was in the black?” he asked, skeptically.
Ghost shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Strange shit’s going on around here lately.” He allowed his gaze to sharpen, chin tucking fractionally for effect. “Why’s Jimmy vandalizing my property? We’ve never done a damn thing to him.”
This time, Dave’s face colored with embarrassment, rather than anger. “I didn’t know he was doing that. But…”
“But what?”
“He said the kids have been talking at school. Lots of them think it’s time to force the Lean Dogs out of town. It’s kind of becoming a thing.”
“What sort of thing?” Ghost asked, tone sharpening. He hadn’t expected this of teenagers. The anti-Dog crowd tended to be adults of the country club variety. Teens generally liked and romanticized the whole outlaw image.
“A movement,” Walsh said. “And it’s spreading.”
Dave nodded. “One of his classmates – a girl named Allie – disappeared. Vanished on her way home from a party. Her car turned up out on the old mill road, but the police haven’t found anything out yet.”
Ghost hadn’t heard of this. “When was this?”
“Two weeks ago, or so,” Walsh supplied. He fiddled with his phone, and then offered Ghost a glimpse of a headline, and a photo of a smiling, pretty teenage girl.
He traded a look with his VP. The graffiti had been happening for longer than that, but if someone – like, say, the heavier-set adults that had appeared on the videos – had started the efforts, it would make sense that they wanted to expand it; bring the whole community into it. And what better place to start than with the young people? A nudge here, a bug in an ear there. Someone close to the kids, with some influence, talking shit about the Dogs. And then a girl disappeared, under nefarious circumstances…
Walsh’s expression didn’t change, save the subtle flexing of his jaw as he clenched it.
Ghost nodded and turned back to Dave. “Whatever happened to Allie, I can promise you the Lean Dogs had nothing to do with it.” He stood. “Make sure your son and his friends stop vandalizing private property, and we’ll forget this ever happened.”
Dave nodded. “Yeah.”
But when they were at the door, he said, “Ghost.”
Ghost glanced back over his shoulder and met Dave’s troubled expression.
“I appreciate your guy stepping in last night. That was good of him. But…can you honestly tell me your club makes this city a safer place? That it doesn’t make it more dangerous?”
Ghost offered him a wide, toothy grin. “Come on, man. Who loves Knoxville more than the Dogs?”
Fox and Mercy were waiting for them at the bikes, having a cigarette. Mercy dropped his to the pavement and ground it out beneath his boot. “Anything?”
