I chuckled, shaking my head. “Sit down. Lemme buy you a slice.”
Minus took a seat and I ordered us a ‘round of pie.’
“What the fuck’s this all about?” he asked.
“This is about Katie lying to me in order to get us to talk,” I replied.
“Is that something she needed to do?” He frowned. “Do we have some sort of problem I’m unaware of?”
“Not between you and me, so much as your club?”
“I wasn’t aware of any history between you and the Saints,” Minus said. “You have some sort of beef with my club?”
I sighed. “You could say that.”
“Okay. You have beef with my club. Am I supposed to guess the rest, or what?”
“Do you remember a guy named Walter Swanson?” I asked.
Minus thought for a moment then shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell?”
“He had a coin shop on Milwaukie back in the late nineties. He also sold comic books and vintage toys. Collectable shit like that.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember that place,” Minus said.
“Walter Swanson, the guy who owned that place was my uncle. He was my mother’s older brother.”
“The Swan,” Minus said with a smile. “That’s what Cutter called him. I remember now,” hesaid his smile quickly fading.
“Yeah,” I bit out. “His place was torched and your club let it happen.”
Minus eyes locked onto mine. “Is that what you think happened?”
“I know it fuckin’ happened,” I shot back. “Your club was paid to protect him, and you left him twisting in the wind just because he was a couple months behind in payments.”
“Well, if you’ve got your mind made up already there’s no sense in me bothering you with the truth,” Minus said, standing to leave.
“Hold on,” I said, waving at him to sit back down. “What do you know that I don’t?”
“Probably a shitload, but we’ll focus on your uncle Swan for now.”
“He was Uncle Wally to me.”
“To the people who he owed two-hundred-thousand dollars to he was known as ‘Dead Man Walking.’ Those people were Los Psychos.”
“What two-hundred-thousand dollars? What are you talking about?”
“Your uncle borrowed quarter of a million dollars from Los Psychos in order to open that little coin shop of his. Seventy-five grand of which he immediately gambled away, along with any profit that store ever saw. The Burning Saints protected your uncle and his store for over a year without collecting a single dime, until Cutter found out that he’d gambled his daughter’scollege fund away at Portland Meadows.”
“Fuck, that’s what happened to Kaia’s money?” I breathed out.
My cousin had ended up moving to California the second she’d turned eighteen. We kept in touch, but the occasional text and email was a far cry from hanging out after school every day. Well, until I met Katie, of course.
Minus nodded. “Cutter confronted your uncle who told him to fuck off and mind his own business, so that’s what Cutter did. A few months later, the Swan’s shop was in flames and your uncle skipped town.”
“He died in a motel room in Prineville.”
“Cutter did everything he could to help your uncle. I’m not sure why. I always assumed there was a deep backstory between them, but your uncle wouldn’t be helped. He just kept making one bad decision after another until they caught up with him. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but my club only tried to help. You could be pissed off at Los Psychos, but we already ran them fuckers outta town a while ago.”
