The sound of the top on a beer can popping reached my ears and I sighed. I’d signed up for an assload of overtime in order to watch out for Peter Gaffin. Who knew when I would have time to enjoy a beer again? I glanced at my watch. It was noon, and I’d have to get going soon to be at TFC on time.
“Liar.”
Glancing back at Rowdy, I shrugged. “It doesn’t bug me.”
“Sure,” he said with a laugh.
“Asshole.” I turned to shake my tongs at him. “Laugh away, dickhead. I’m not going to have time to cook for the rest of the month, at least. You’re on your own when you’re not on the clock.”
That sobered him right up, since he had no damned idea how to cook anything more complicated than a taco, and that was if the toppings had already been chopped and prepared by someone else. He scratched his fingernails along the golden stubble on his jaw and sat back in his chair. The sunshine glinted on his short blond hair. As long as I’d known him, he’d kept his style long on top and buzzed at the sides. His black NGFD T-shirt, with the red fire-helmet logo in the center, stretched across his chest and arms. The end of winter was hanging on and it was too fucking cold out for the short sleeves—I was in a coat and my gear for work—but he didn’t seem to feel the air.
“Sorry,” he said with an eyebrow waggle. He tipped his beer can up and drained a healthy portion of the brew.
“Do you really need me to go with you in the morning?” I was already dreading the necessity of getting up at the asscrack of dawn after rolling in at nearly two o’clock in the morning, and that landing time wasifthere was no bullshit with paperwork,andthe cons weren’t up to no good—which there frequently was, and they frequently were.
Rowdy nodded and widened his eyes at me. “Yeah, I need your help. We have to catch him before he leaves for work. This guy is a member of a really wild cult. His sister practically offered me her life savings and firstborn if I would try to drag him out of it. They’re the Scion of the Mind.” He set his can down and braced himself on the edge of the round, white-painted metal table. “Thescionin charge of thecollectiveseems to be fucking all the female members, and half the guys. The members’ nights to be in his exalted presence, and presumably take his transcendental dick, are on a calendar. She stumbled on it in her brother’s phone when he came home to crash for a while. She asked him what it was. That’s how she found out he’s been living with these people instead of going to NG State like the family thought.”
“Oh, wow. Like… scion dude set himself up a harem? Is it a harem if there are men in it?”
Rowdy nodded and seemed far too impressed, but hell, I was too. It took a certain type of personality to trap people in their own head. “I didn’t have the heart to tell the sister that just talking to me doesn’t guarantee anything. He’s still deep in the mindset, but he ran out of money. I’m not sure he’s in a good place for deprogramming counseling.”
“Ran out of money?” I asked, confused. “Last I heard, people didn’t need money to be on the train to Nopesville.”
Rowdy laughed so hard his shoulders shook with it, and the sound carried out and echoed. “Yeah, the scion is taking a page right out of Tatum Black’s pimp playbook. Remember how the AS had dues? The people in his collective have to pay for the privilege of living on his million-dollar compound. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had them doing far more than that.”
“More than the sex, too, you mean?” I asked and rolled my eyes. “It’s always part of the cult life, isn’t it?”
He nodded, and we both winced at memories best left visited as infrequently as possible.
I grimaced. “How old is the brother? Can we get the cops involved?”
Rowdy blew out a long breath and sipped at his beer. He cringed. “Twenty-two. Legally there’s nothing the sister can do about it, other than trying to get him help. From what she’s found out, this scion fella might be doing some illegal things, but until the house of cards falls in on him, he’s still free to do whatever he wants.”
“Ugh.” I turned back to the grill and poked at the hunk of meat with the tongs, then lifted it off the rack onto a serving plate. I carried everything to the table, where plates and utensils were waiting, along with the potato salad Rowdy bought on the way here. I moved aside his half-assed attempt at contributing and set down the plate, then dropped the tongs on the table with a clatter. “I don’t want to do this one.”
“He needs more than one person to talk to him.” Rowdy raised his eyebrows in my direction, and the old guilt surged in me. This is what I’d promised him I’d do. We’d decided that since we never went to the cops about the Aryan Soldiers, and we never turned ourselves in when that fuck Tatum Black got arrested, we had to do something to make the scales of karma tip in our favor.
We’d gotten away with everything we’d ever done in the name of the AS, but I’d known long before Black was taken by the cops that I wanted out, and that I should have never joined in the first fucking place. I’d wanted friends who liked to play army, more or less, without the irritation of actually joining up and being in danger. I’d found plenty of acceptance at my local gun range with a group of guys who hung out there all the time. At eighteen, I’d gotten sucked into the AS without a backward glance… until people started dying. I’d found out what they were really about after I’d been assigned to Rowdy’s squad—and it sure as shit wasn’t shooting guns for fun. By then, there was no getting out without a body bag of my own.
Rowdy’s story was about the same as mine, though I wasn’t stupid enough to think he hadn’t kept a few of the more illegal things to himself when he’d told it to me.
Crossing my arms, I tried not to glare. “You don’t think this kid will feel ganged up on?”
Rowdy pointed at me with his fork. “He’s not that much younger than you, old man. You’re not even thirty yet. I’m closer to forty. You’re relatable. I’m nearly decomposed into dust, at least in that kid’s head.”
“Fuck off.” I shoved at his shoulder, and he laughed.
“No, in answer to your question, I don’t think he will be overwhelmed by two of us. He misses the cult life. He’s been working three jobs to save up money to go back. You know how it is when you’re part of a mission.” We both winced as he slipped into the coded speech of the AS we tried to avoid whenever possible. As much as we’d struggled to get back to a normal life, that terrible time lingered on the edges of everything we did. “There are always others around in that lifestyle. You feel important, like the whole machine might fall apart without you.”
“And why do you think I would be better to talk to him than you?”
Rowdy ducked his head and fiddled with his fork. “He was more like you. He didn’t… do things like I did. He seems lower-level. A follower.”
“Ah.” I nodded and sighed, looking out over the lake again. The shimmering waves didn’t give me any great ideas or profound words that would get me out of this. “Okay, I’ll go.”
“You seem down, more than usual.” Rowdy reached over and rested his hand on my wrist. We’d never been intimate, but we were friends, and I appreciated the gesture. I patted the back of his hand, and he let me go.
“Got a new guy in at work. He’s under my skin. He seems familiar. I don’t know him, but I know how he’s acting.” Closing my eyes, I imagined Peter Gaffin, with his strong features and the way his honey eyes always seemed to be both cursing me and begging for help.
