I shook my head and lay a fifty-dollar bill on the bar. “That’s foryou.”
“Cheers,” he replied.
“Is Boneyard around tonight?”
“Depends on who the fuck’s askin’.”
“I am,” I said.
“That don’t clear things up much now does it. I don’t recognize you and I’m here every night. So, if I don’t recognize you, that means Boneyard doesn’t know you.”
“You’re right, he doesn’t.”
“So, what are you doing here and why the fuck are you asking for Boneyard?” The bartender’s tone changed to ice cold.
“Just looking to make an introduction, that’s all. My name is Keith Massey. I did time down in Florence with a mutual associate of ours who told me I should look him up when Igot out. I was told he was the man who could move the kind of thing I need to move.”
“And who is this mutual associate of yours?”
“Legs Walker,” I replied as cooly as possible.
“Is that so?” the bartender asked, sizing me up as if mentally fitting me for my coffin.
I nodded.
“Wait right here,” the bartender said before coming out from behind the bar and disappearing down the adjacent hallway. He returned in less than a minute with Boneyard and two other club members in tow.
“Who the fuck are you?” Boneyard asked, coming in closer than I’d usually allow. His goon brothers were standing directly to the left andright of him.
“Keith Massey,” I replied.
Boneyard motioned to the bartender. “Bob here said you claim to know Legs Walker.”
“I don’t claim to know him, I do,” I said.
This, like everything else I would tell Boneyard, and his skin job pals was, of course, complete horse shit.
Florence was a maximum-security prison, and its star prisoner was Thomas “Legs” Walker. A violent and ruthless criminal who was not only a founding member of the Supreme Riders MC, but also the Denver chapter of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He was currently serving two ninety-nine-year sentences for the murder of two young black men, who were simply at the wrong place,at the wrong time, and the wrong color according to Legs Walker, who gunned them down in the street with no provocation whatsoever. I’d never been a guest of the Florence Max Pen, but my cousin, Dale had. He spent twelve years living three cells down from Legs Walker, and he told me everything I needed to know in order to sound credible to these guys.
“Legs happens to be a real fucking close personal friend of mine, ya know. So, how come I never heard of you?”
“I only knew him for the last eleven months of my five year stretch in Florence. But we became tight after I did him a solid.”
“What did you do?”
“Inside Florence, they called me ‘Messy’ Massey, because inmates paid me to mess up people’s faces.”
“And what? Legs hired you to fuck somebody up?”
I shook my head. “Someone hired me to fuck up Legs. An inmate named Jimmy Fredricks, who owed Legs a shit ton of money and couldn’t pay, and so wanted to intimidate him into forgiving his debt.”
Boneyard’s eyes widened. “This guy Fredricks paid you to jump Legs?”
“He did, but instead, out of respect, I went straight to Legs and told him what was up.”
“What did Legs do?”
“He told me to keep the money Jimmy Fredricks paid me, and promised to pay me double the amountnext week if I did the job on him instead. So, three days later, Jimmy Fredricks was found in the shower with a busted orbital socket and two broken arms. Legs paid me, just as he’d promised plus he said he owed me one, and should I ever need anything, just ask.”
