“Yeah, brother, I know. I’ve been mapping, and tonight it’ll be outside the bar on Rover Street. You know the one I mean in Stirlingsville. I reckon you should grab the fucker, get your hog and let’s have some fun with him before you bury his ass.”
That is how I end up waiting here for Fink to arrive. I have Saddle, Drifter, Winger, and Rage with me, and we are all fairly well wound up ready for anything. We are parked in a white van with blacked-out windows. The van looks like a removal company, and it’s not causing anyone to take a second look at it.
“Once he arrives we see how many Cobras are with him. If he is stupid enough to be on his own, it’ll be far easier to grab him. But we can take more if needed.” Rage grins, which looks more like a snarl.
“Do you think we should go around the back and check that out?” Winger asks, making Rage snort.
“He’ll not go around the back if he’s on his own. He's a fuckin’ coward, and we all know it. Hell, most of them are cowards,” Rage states with another snarl. He’s been getting worse with his attitude of late, but I’m not going to be the one to tell him.
Hearing a hog, I look at Drifter, then Saddle. They both jump out of the van, not wearing their cuts of course. In fact, we all left them back at the clubhouse. Winger, Rage and I watch the two of them saunter across the street towards the bar. Talking to each other as though they are just strolling past.
My hog pulls up outside the bar, and thankfully there is no one about that would recognize us. We three jump out of thevan, Winger throwing open the back doors and pulling down the ramp for the hog. Drifter and Saddle tackle Fink and have him hog-tied, mouth stuffed and taped so he can’t make a sound. A woman is watching as she is heading to the bar, and Saddle notices, giving her a grin. “We’re Marines on a practice maneuver. You can walk past. We’ve got our pretend suspect under arrest.”
The woman giggles, gives a finger wave and sashays past them, giving a good swing of her hips, which makes me snort. If only she knew what was really going on!
Two hours later, we are back at the clubhouse. Fink is tied up and ready for us to interrogate. He is a little wide-eyed as he notices the others we have waiting alongside him.
Whack walks into the shed and looks at all the officers who are waiting. “Cannon, cancel the meeting with Para. We’ll send him a gift or two instead. He wants war, we’ll give him a fucking war.”
CHAPTER 12
*~* Breaker *~*
Watching the Cobras sweat, and the fear that is obvious with each of them, I couldn’t give a shit. Whack gives a nod to Drifter and watches as he puts a bag over the head of the first Cobra in line. When there is only one without a bag, Saddle steps forward and slaps him hard across the face, making him squeal. The others in the line jerk, as though struck themselves. Sound is now their worst enemy. Not being able to see what is causing the noise is going to wreak havoc in their imaginations.
Without asking a single question, Drifter and Saddle continue slapping their victim and mix in some solid punches in all the easy to bruise places on the human body. Griller has a drawing in his hand, and after every fifth punch or slap he steps forward, checks his drawing and then makes a cut on the Cobra’s body with a scalpel. When I asked him about it, he said that he’d gota drawing of the human body and sat down with Jamie. He got her to point out all the non-lethal places he could cut someone to get the most dramatic blood loss without actually endangering his subject.
I have to say the effect is dramatic, to say the least. We’ve done the least amount of damage I have ever seen to a prisoner that has been brought to the shed, but with the blood loss and the bruising, he looks like he’s been tortured for a week!
Taking the blindfold off prisoner number two certainly has the desired effect. As soon as he stops blinking his gaze settles on the unconscious number one. Looking at Griller, who has donned rubber gloves and a blood-soaked apron, his face drains of all its color, his eyes roll to the back of his head, and he passes out.
A bucket of cold water thrown over him soon has him back with us. No sooner does he open his eyes when a trickle of piss runs from his pants leg. It soon becomes a river, and he just cries like a baby. He gets the same treatment as the first guy but fewer slaps and more punches.
The next one awaiting his bag removed is my friend Fink. I’ll be dealing with this one, and he won’t be getting the softly-softly treatment either. As soon as his bag is removed and before his eyes finish blinking, I’ve hit him three times. His nose is broken, his lips smashed, and he’s gasping for air.
“Remember me, asshole?” I hold his chin and get right in his face. “You’ve been riding my hog, and now it’s time to pay the rental on it.” Taking two of my best shots to his kidneys, he retches.
“The last time wealmostmet in that cornfield, Fink, you said you were going to kill me. Not quite what you were expecting, eh? When my Pres has finished with you, I get your leftoversto do with as I please. If you’ve even scratched my hog, you’re going to take a long time to die.” Giving him a last punch to his stomach, I grin as all the air rushes out of him. After only a few minutes of punches and cuts, Fink is out cold. What a club full of pussies.
Prisoner number four is already blubbering like a baby, so we skip onto the last in the line. He’s the unlucky one. He gets the real deal with the interrogation, and although he starts out well, it soon becomes clear that he knows fuck all of any use to us.
Turning our attention back to number four, he looks at us all and begs for us not to hurt him. What sort of man does this? As soon as Whack begins to question him, he blurted stuff out faster than an AI on a search engine.
They are not ex-military, just ex-cons and thugs. They don’t do any kind of weapons training or hand-to-hand. They just drink, whore and thieve. They take women as they want them, and when they’re done with them, they sell them on, or kill them. He thinks there are around forty to fifty altogether, but that’s only based on what their president says when he’s bragging. He’s never seen more than twenty at any one time. The entire club is too lazy to have their own businesses, so they steal and rob to get what they want or need.
The president had a woman who was shaping up to be their First Lady, but she got greedy and ran off with the club cash. She tried to access the club's bank account, but the bank sensed something amiss and stopped the transaction. Their Pres is looking for her, and God help her when he finds her. Stealing from the club guaranteed that she’d die when they caught her, but making a fool of the Pres guaranteed that it would be long and painful. Handing her over might stop hostilities, but probably not for long. They are like locusts, and they’ve aboutpicked their town clean, so will need to move on sooner rather than later.
Whack orders the deaths of three of the prisoners, and it’s done quickly and efficiently. I get to play with Fink, and the talker gets to live, just not anywhere near here. He’s put on his bike, escorted out of town and sent on his way. He won’t be welcomed back at the Cobras after having spilled his guts to us, so he’ll be heading as far away from these parts as quickly as he can.
We take an ear from one, a tongue from another, a toe, and a nose, four individuals contributing to our show of strength. All packaged up for the Cobras’ President. Fink gets to suffer for an hour, but I get bored with his whining and when his begging becomes insufferable, I take the scalpel that Griller left me and slit his throat. He’ll be getting dumped in the Cobras' hometown with enough planted evidence for the local sheriff to pay them some serious attention. If they haven’t already bought him out, of course. Now I can check on my hog and give her a good clean!
Walking into the shop Andy and Thorn are saying will make a great barber shop, I think they are right. It’s on Main Street, so it will get plenty of feet passing the place. It has parking in front, and it has an apartment above.
I, along with Cannon, Bank and Saddle, walk around the shop. It’s a large space, with room for four seats. A reception counter where people can book appointments, and we can place a register there, too. I have to admit I lose interest in the shop area and wander up the stairs to the apartment.
Two bedrooms, a tiny kitchen area, with a decent open-plan living room. Three large windows that let in a lot of light make the place feel larger than it is. It’s a better apartment than theone Andy was in previously. It needs modernizing some and sure needs a clean as this place has been standing empty for probably two years.
Bank walks into the apartment and gives me a nod. “The place will work. It’s something that we can modernize easily, and it’ll pay for itself in I guess four years, maybe three if they pull in a lot of customers.”
