Ihate our weekly meetings. I understand why we need them, but it only reminds me of church to sit there listening to Ethan preach about profits, connections, operating costs, losses and all that other stuff. I liked the army because they told us exactly what to do and all you had to do was follow orders to succeed.
This time, we aren’t in trouble, but that hardly means fun and games. There’s been an escalation in the government situation and our contacts in Boston are desperate for more than simple semi-automatic weapons and handguns. It used to be a lot easier to get grenades and tear gas over the border in San Antonio or out in San Diego, but it’s not the same.
We can feel the pinch all the way out East, especially as the federal government rounds up more people they have problems with. It started off with the Mexicans and Venezuelans, and nobody really worried about them because we all figured they were men who had done time or were going to do time, so who really cared if they did their time over here or over there.
Maybe smarter folks than I did realized how bad it would get. There have been rumors of the federal government kidnapping people off the streets of Boston. Women have gone missing –American women. Not like it would matter if they weren’t. It’s just that the truth exposes the federal government as worse than anyone thought.
As far as I know, all women need protection from men. Hell, if the government has masked goons out on the streets kidnapping women – we now know this to be true – then the stories of missing kids and ripped apart families might be more than just rumors or fake news.
It’s easy to swallow up the lies when you live out in the country, but here in the city, you can’t avoid it. It doesn’t feel like America anymore. I might be able to shut my eyes and focus on business, but that doesn’t change the way the world feels right now. Aiden Murray, the leader of the Irish mafia out here in Boston, charges protection fees across most of the city to keep immigration enforcement and homeland security away from businesses and residential streets, but they can’t mobilize against the federal government withoutmore.
More weapons. More alliances. More shit that we have to pull out of our asses if we or anyone else in this country stands a chance at keeping our freedoms.
I’m early to our meeting, which is unfortunate, because Ethan turns all his wrath on me for the fact that everybody else is late to the party.
“Where the hell is Reed?” Ethan snarls with the usual manners you can expect from him. The military would have done the Shaw boys some good since they all communicate like savages.
“Can’t say.”
“Where the hell were you?”
“Gym with Odhran. Three more Irish families from Providence with ties to the IRA are bringing forces to Boston for the summer. We have more buyers than we know what to do with – the problem might be fulfilling the orders.”
“You in the mood to keep driving back and forth out West?”
I’ve made the trip a couple times and I don’t particularly enjoy spending that much time on the road alone.
“No.”
Ethan laughs. “Well, I appreciate the honesty. Can’t say it’ll keep you off the road.”
I have no reason not to heartily agree to go back West. The more time I spend on the road, the more money I make. Not like I really have time to spend it on anything other than my apartment and my bike.I should get a dog.
The others enter the bar at roughly the same time. Cody has a toothpick between his teeth and a black Stetson on, standing about a head taller than the others, who aren’t small men either. Isaac walks like he’s been drinking, but he’s smiling more than I’ve seen him since Wyatt ordered him out to the East Coast.
They’re in a good mood, which I don’t understand and thankfully, neither does Ethan.
“You’re late,” he snaps at them.
“Only by half an hour,” Isaac says. “Did we miss anything good?”
“If I could send your ass out West, I would,” Ethan says.
“We’re talking supply. Let’s talk,” Isaac says, sitting at the table and tipping Ethan’s bottle of vodka directly to his lips.
“Use a glass, you animal.”
Isaac doesn’t apologize, but he pours his next shot in the glass before sliding a glass across the table to me. I brought my own bottle of Hollingsworth whiskey, which I reveal from my cut as Isaac sends the glass over. Cody takes a call about a bay mustang that lasts a loud and uncomfortable fifteen minutes before we get back to our meeting.
Ethan looks about ready to end his life when he picks up, “We have two more organizations that need weapons. A small group of men in Maine, bit paranoid, right-wingers, and then a home-defense militia out in Western Mass, somewhere along the south border. Can’t recall.”
“How much do they need?” Isaac asks. We’re all listening closely. I wouldn’t mind being the one to go West. It might be a good distraction from that girl I met the other night who still hasn’t called. She won’t call, I know, but a guy can dream. It gets lonely out here and I don’t like the thought of a woman selling herself just to put a roof over her head. Makes my skin crawl.
Call me crazy but the only time that I see fit to take a woman to bed is when the two of us have a real connection. I might have one with Janelle. There was something when I kissed her that almost turned me into an animal.
“They’re looking to get a few boxes of pump action shotguns to distribute and resell up in the white mountains to start,” Ethan says. “We get the guns here and our connection with the Murrays will get the weapons to the buyer.”
“Should be easy,” Cody says. “Easy money and light work.”
