Baghouse’s angered bellow woke Scrap from dozing in his recliner. He shifted himself, trying to find relief from the constant discomfort in his back. The stones he had before were one kind of pain. They started high, then moved with agonizing slowness down through his side and groin until he could pee the damn things out. This pain was different. It stayed in the same place like a nagging wife, never letting up or allowing him any peace.
Scrap inhaled slowly and focused on the chess board sitting on the beat-up table between him and Baghouse. He and his wife came by to check on him, and Mary, of course, decided to cook a meal for them. Scrap had forgotten whose move it was, but it didn’t look good for his friend. Checkmate in three moves. If only his life were that simple. Three moves and done. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
“Did they get the guy? Who’s hurt? Where are they now?”
Scrap’s brain finally came to full attention and recognized the urgency in Baghouse’s questions.Fuck, something happened. “What the hell is goin’ on?”
Baghouse held up a hand to say he’d explain when he finished his call. “Let me know what they say.” He hung up and turned to Scrap with a shocked and haggard face. “That rally the boys planned? Some fucking jagoff turned it into a day for target practice. Eight people shot. One dead, and three in critical. One of our boys went down too. Camshaft caught a bullet while rescuing a kid. Crossman says there’s a video blowing up the internet.”
Scrap’s heart jumped into overdrive, and the pain in his back increased. It took him a moment to process the words.Rally. Jagoff. Shot. Camshaft.“Where is he?”
“Hospital with that girl Sabrina. He’s been seeing her.”
Another pang hit his heart. “Is she okay?” He hoped the gruffness of his voice covered the emotional tempest in his chest.
“Yeah, she was safe. Cross said she kept her cool and helped direct people out of the park.”
“You got a Facebook or YouTube thing? Pull up the video.”
Someone took the footage with a phone camera, and the picture was shaky, but the angle perfectly captured Cam sprinting toward and scooping up a crying child. The video showed him tucking the little boy into his body, shielding and protecting him as he ran. A couple of shots whizzed by him, the bullets hitting the ground with small dirt explosions. Then Cam jerked and fell, still safeguarding the kid at the peril of his own life. The video stopped with a final picture of Cam covering the boy with his body, leaving his back open and exposed.
“People are commenting on us. How we protect and serve better than the cops. Lotta women saying that’s the kind of man they wanna meet.” Baghouse took his phone back and slipped it into his back pocket.
Mary bustled out of the kitchen and flipped the drying dish cloth over her shoulder in a practiced move. “I’m not surprised.Camshaft is a very handsome young man who’s got his head together.”
Scrap shifted uncomfortably, trying to find a position to get some relief. “So? Why the hell should we be concerned about some jagoff’s video of Cam getting shot?”
Baghouse gruffed right back at the older man. “Because it makes him a hero. Makes the whole damn club look good too.”
“Dammit! Can we erase that shit?”
“Why would you want to do something like that? We’ve been fading away for years, and before that, people were scared shitless of us. Cam just made us into fucking champions. I expect we’ll get some good press out of this. What’s wrong with that?”
“That’s the problem with expectations,” Scrap muttered. “They’re always too fucking high.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY
“I’m fuckin’sick of this shit!” Wolf roared.
The rest of the Knights gathered around some hastily set-up card tables at the machine shop. Specs and Stalemate were at the strip club for security until this church meeting ended. The Attic was hopping tonight, full of men with loose wallets drinking up a storm. Money needed to flow, but the club needed privacy for this particular meeting.
The odd addition was Denny, a policeman who happened to be friends with the Knights. Denny followed the law, but he also realized that sometimes justice didn’t follow the rules.
Wolf continued to shout. “How the fuck did he get away?”
Ratchet scratched his short dark hair. “I don’t know, but I’m sure I winged him. He fell off the back of the shed, out of sight.”
Denny tapped his pen on the table’s surface. “We got there pretty damn quick. We didn’t see a body, but we found a bloodstain on the wall where the fucker slid down.” He lifted his head to regard Ratchet. “Nice shot, by the way.”
“Thanks.”
“Can you match his DNA to some fancy database?” Wolf inquired in a calmer tone.
Denny shook his head. “Only if he’s in the system already, but it’s not like Hollywood where you have to solve the crime in an hour-long episode. It takes weeks or even months to get answers back on shit like this.”
The folding metal chair creaked as Wolf leaned back into it. “So you’re saying we’re fucked?”
